The idea of empowerment is invoked in many contexts like human rights, economic insecurity, and disadvantaged groups an about their capacity building, and also their capacity building, and also in addressing the problems of rights. Empowerment involves two important aspects: developing capabilities, negotiating skills and the ability of people on the one hand; and obtaining authority to make decisions or participate in decision making on affairs that affect their lives on the other. Theoretically, empowerment is a process that helps people to gain control over their lives through raising awareness, taking action and working in order to exercise greater control.

Empowerment necessarily demands political inclusion in the institutions of decision-making and a change in the existing power relations, where certain sections of society remain outside the decision-making arena due to their specific historical socio-cultural experiences. In a democratic political structure, empowerment therefore, entrails proper and effective representation in the institutions of governance, so that people can voice their concerns and participate in decision making on matters that affect their lives.

Political empowerment is also regarded as political incorporation (inclusion), meaning the extent to which a group has achieved significant representation and influence in political decision-making.

Marginalized Sections:

• India has a population of 1.3 billion an even with an average economic growth rate of 6-7 percent per annum, almost one fourth of its population still lives in poverty.
• Seven out of every 10 Indians still live in rural areas.
• The economic condition of the poor is inextricably intertwined with the social dimensions of his well-being, equity and social rights.
• The vulnerable and marginalized groups in India are not distinct and easily identifiable.
• The social fabric is ethnically diverse, socially stratified and heterogeneous in composition.
• With low literacy, abject poverty, complex social-ethnic environment, the poor and the vulnerable are mired in historical suppression and subordination over the generations.

The constitution provides protective and preferential treatment to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, including the right to be treated equally and affirmative action in the form of reservations in educational institutions and public sector. It also prohibits any practice of discriminating or excluding individuals from social interaction, public places or even physical contact against these groups. But even in the less violent spheres of economic and social lives, participation of the marginalized groups in Panchayati Raj System is dismal because of pressures and restrictions. Their access to political participation depends on their economic and political relations with the dominant social class.

Historical Background:

The task of strengthening the Panchayati raj system fell on the Indian government after independence. To strengthen democracy, villages had to be strengthened because India is a country of village panchayats. Mahatma Gandhi strongly believed in Gram Swaraj. According to him, the villages should be governed by themselves through elected panchayats to become self-sufficient. But surprisingly, they were not included in the draft Constitution. Due to Gandhiji’s intervention it was included in Article 40 of the Directive Principles of the State Policy.

In the beginning, they failed to generate popular interest and enthusiasm. To bring enthusiasm in panchayats, the planning Commission appointed a study team headed by Balwantrai Mehta in 1956. The committee had recommended that “only grass root level agency can establish a link between local leadership and the local people” and it recommended three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in the country.

By mid 1960s, Panchayati Raj had reached all parts of the country and the people felt that there was a system which could attend to their issues at local level. However, within two years of its reach it failed to strengthen further. It has also been said by the experts that they were lacking constitutional sanction and clarity and most of the PRIs functioned as government’s institutions. According to Mathur, these institutions were not seen as institutions of peoples’ participation that played a role on deepening democracy, but rather seen as instruments to facilitate the implementation of national policies

73rd Constitutional Amendment:

• In September 1991, the Panchayati Raj Bill was introduced and later it was passed in 1992 as the 73rdConstitutional Amendment Act with minor modifications and came into force on 24th April 1993.
• The significant feature of this act is that it gave Constitutional status to Panchayati Raj Institutions and it became mandatory to all the state governments to implement this act.
• This Amendment brought, uniformity in structure, composition, powers and functions of PRIs.
• It gave impetus to Panchayati Raj to promote social and economic development and improvement in living conditions of rural India.
• Creation of Panchayati Raj is perhaps the best transformation in democratic India to realise the participation of ordinary people in power sharing.
• The act provided a three-tier system of panchayat at village, intermediate and district levels.
• The Act says that there should be gram sabha in each village.
• A landmark feature of the act is that in all the panchayats, seats should be reserved for SCs and STs in proportion to their population and 1/3 of the total number of seats will be reserved for women.
• Reservation of seats and offices of the chairpersons for scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) in proportion to their population has the potential to bring radical change in the socio-political structure of this country.
• The reservation policy has given a chance to elect nearly 18.51 percent of SCs 11.26 per cent for STs and 36.87 per cent for STs and 36.87 percent for women in all the 2,39,582 panchayats in the country.

Marginalised Sections in PRIs:

• At present, seventeen states are implementing 50 per cent reservation to women at all levels of Panchayati Raj .
• This has brought about a virtual democratic revolution with more than 50 lakh representatives getting elected at local level every five years; out of which 13 lakh are women and more than 5.5 lakh are Scheduled castes. Within the 5.5 lakh, the Scheduled caste women are also getting elected as presidents and ward members.
• It’s an important planning approach regarding minimizing the traditional felling about the SC and STs in our society, particularly in terms of keeping them away from society with new generation of Panchayats starting to function, several issues have come to the fore, which have a bearing on human rights.
• The elected representatives of different pro-poor programmes at panchayati level and unpublished works in India.
• The SC elected representatives are giving importance to loan and credit for agriculture and animal husbandry related activities.
• They equally pay attention to the matters of creating and maintaining facilities like roads, drinking water and streetlights in their localities.
• It is understood that SC leaders accord priority to the developmental activates which leads to benefit of their community.

Article 243D also specifies the mandatory rotation i.e., the structural constraints of reservation of seats among constituencies from one election to the next election in the 3-tier Panchayati Raj system. Though the act failed to provide second term to the contestants in the same constituency but it has helped the same group/community to contest in neighbouring constituency under reservation. This is the real transformation of participatory democracy for the marginalized sections of the society.

The awareness level among the rural masses of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Sikkim has brought significant changes in the functioning of Gram Sabha and its decisions, and they are successfully implementing the decisions of the Gram Sabha Significant feature in Madhya Pradesh Raj Act is that they should conduct more than sixteen Gram Sabha meetings annually. This is a good way of self-governance at the grassroots level.

Another interesting factor on women in Panchayati raj is that political empowerment has enhanced their social status. It has enabled them to participate in all matters connected with the society on an egalitarian basis. The Panchayati membership has given better status to women in the public sphere. They are invited to participate in all the social functions of the panchayati area.

Marginalized Sections: Challenges

• The states such as Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Chhattisgarh Maharashtra, and Rajasthan have also introduced the two-child norm as eligibility criteria for contesting elections.
• Though this norm goes against both men and women, it is more detrimental to women especially to the scheduled castes and schedule tribe community because majority of the families follow the big and joint family norm.
• The continued dominance of traditional/dominant groups in rural India and the constitutional provisions of 73rd Amendment have intensified the antagonistic or conflict ridden rural situation which result in, more often than not, the violations of human rights on mass scale including violence, bloodshed and loss of life.
• Widespread violence preceded and followed the panchayats election in most of the states and many seats were won without being contested. This shows that the tussle of power exists not just between state and panchayats, but also between the traditional dominant power structure and emerging new leadership from the marginalise groups at the grassroots.

Conclusion:

 The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act intends to empower the marginal sections of the society. Of late, the marginalised communities themselves are actively participating in the decision making and implementing process particularly in developing their communities and also their localities. Despite all these there are still some issues which need to be addressed sincerely like sharing of power with women. A positive step in this direction would give impetus to the empowerment of women in PRIs, particularly of the marginalized communities.