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The Nari Shakti Vandan Act, which provides 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, came into effect nationwide on April 16, 2026. Although the law was passed in 2023, it was notified by the Union Law Ministry nearly two years later. However, the Constitutional Amendment Bill, which related to the women’s reservation law and delimitation, was defeated after voting on April 17, 2026.
The issue of 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies is decades old. Despite numerous debates and support for reservation, the current 18th Lok Sabha has a mere 14 per cent share of women. The current Lok Sabha has 75 elected women MPs, a significant decrease from the 78 women MPs elected in the previous 17th Lok Sabha.
Women’s participation in India’s political system has grown at a very slow and modest pace. Based on 15 elections since 1957, Sirin M Roy and Carol Spary, authors of Performing Representation: Women Members in Indian Parliament, estimated that it would take another 55 years for women to reach a 33 per cent representation in the Lok Sabha. This would take approximately 11 general elections.
In the book, published in January 2019, the authors note that India’s lower house (the Lok Sabha) has only 11 per cent women, compared to a global average of 23.6 per cent and a regional (Asia) average of 19.7 per cent. This places India at 145th out of 193 in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s league table of women’s representation in parliament.
According to the book, even if all 333 women elected from the first to the 16th Lok Sabha were added together, it would still not fill a full Lok Sabha. This is symbolic of the male dominance in Parliament. Since 1957, the number of women in the Lok Sabha has not reached double digits. The first Lok Sabha had 22 women MPs, which only reached 75 in 2024.
If there has been a truly meaningful and serious effort to increase women’s participation in governance, it is in the panchayats. Twenty-one states across the country have granted women 50 per cent reservation in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), up from 33 per cent. This is why there are 1.45 million elected women representatives in PRIs, representing 46 per cent of the total.
Therefore, examining the work of women representing panchayats is important in order to assess women’s political power and their work in governance. One should also consider how priorities shift and what changes occur in governance when women are in decisive roles.
Jashoda Dehuri, sarpanch of Jatra village in Odisha’s Keonjhar district, told Down To Earth (DTE) that when women become sarpanches or village heads, governance priorities often shift from the usual infrastructure-focused development to need-based, inclusive and welfare-oriented planning, especially addressing the everyday challenges that families face.
According to Dehuri, men may take the availability of basic resources like rivers for granted. But women, who are responsible for fetching water, understand the true burden of this task. That’s why Dehuri prioritised access to drinking water. She installed five tube wells and emphasised initiatives like “Water for Every Home.”
She added, “While male representatives may take school infrastructure for granted, women focus on real results. Recognising the problem of children dropping out of school, we monitored attendance regularly to ensure that no child in our panchayat dropped out.”
She also said that female representatives often prioritise employment opportunities for women, recognising that women’s control over money can change the power dynamics within the household. Her initiative to start a sewing and training unit called “Gandhamardhan Apparel” reflects this thinking.
Women representatives often bring greater transparency and accountability to governance. Having experienced economic hardship themselves, they are more sensitive to issues like corruption. Dehuri took a strong stand against bribery in housing schemes and ensured that poor families were not burdened with additional burdens. She believes that women’s leadership strengthens governance by making it more sensitive, fair, and responsive to ground realities.
Swapna Sarangi, program director at the Foundation for Ecological Security, which has worked with women for nearly 25 years, told DTE, “Initially, when we talked about planting trees in villages, men would name species that were market-oriented, like teak and bamboo. Their understanding was tied to the market; they wanted to reap economic benefits from the plants.”
“When we asked the women for information about such plants, they had a list of about 50-60. These were trees whose leaves, fruits, flowers, and bark were all useful,” said Sarangi.
She explained that when women enter decision-making roles, their understanding improves. Wherever people have been empowered under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), women chair most of the committees, thanks to their activism.
According to Sarangi, wherever women have worked at the panchayat level with a better understanding of their role, panchayat plans have become better. There has also been a radical improvement in the system.
She explained that when her panchayat decided to build a pond, the ego of men often came in the way. They wanted to build a pond near their town. They did not consider that a pond should be built where there was water. When women participated in this, they planned to build ponds where there was water. They identified places where water was available to women, animals, and children.
Sarangi noted that male-dominated panchayats tend to focus more on concrete projects, such as buildings, roads, and community halls, which are expensive projects. Women, on the other hand, prioritise smaller projects. They prefer to get more work done with smaller budgets rather than large projects with multi-million dollar budgets.
Women in the panchayat prioritise toilets in schools and better facilities in Anganwadis, said Sarangi. Their priorities include projects that benefit the maximum number of people. Sarangi said women create plans with a mother’s perspective. Sanitation, improved water supply, and health and nutrition are prioritised in her plans.
According to her, women sarpanches work with the village’s benefit in mind, rather than their own. Women sarpanches are easy to reach and readily available.
Padmaja Rani, sarpanch of Kothakotta village in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, told DTE, “The primary priority of women representatives is to improve the economic condition of families. They want to empower their homes and communities. I started loans through self-help groups to empower women financially, after which many women started their own businesses. Male representatives usually don’t think in this direction. Only women can do such work.”
Chhavi Rajawat, former sarpanch of Soda village in Tonk district of Rajasthan, said in an interview to DTE that when women lead, communities prosper.
She said the Act providing 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha creates an opportunity to implement on a larger scale what has already been proved at the panchayat level.
Rajawat said when women rule, the very nature of governance shifts from “development for the people” to “development with the people.” “Our priorities are determined by our realities, including water availability, healthcare, education, and security. These are not trivial issues, but the foundation of a strong nation.”
According to Rajawat, women leaders bring with them a natural tendency to consult. They engage self-help groups, local networks, families, and men as willing partners in progress. The decisions that emerge from this process are more inclusive, more sustainable, and imbued with deeper human values.
She said while governance has traditionally focused only on visible things (roads, stadiums, bridges), women often ask quieter, deeper questions: “Is the child going to school? Is the mother safe? Are elderly parents being properly cared for? We emphasise that, in addition to roads and buildings, there must also be well-functioning schools, accessible healthcare, and dignified livelihoods.”
Women are also more process-oriented, said Rajawat. “They ask who is benefiting and who is being left behind. Are delivery systems truly reaching the last person? We closely monitor implementation, and on-the-ground experience consistently shows that doing so reduces resource leakage and strengthens community accountability. This isn’t a political argument. It’s simply the natural outcome that emerges when decision-makers have experienced the consequences of poor governance in their own homes.”
She said because women in India are responsible for household management, caregiving, and often agricultural work, their decision-making is inherently multigenerational and multifaceted. This is driven not by electoral appeal, but by social acceptance and community needs. “This is a quality our democracy desperately needs today.”
Rajawat further explained that her tenure as sarpanch was driven by the single belief that true development is about enhancing human capabilities and dignity, not just laying concrete. She said, “I redefined governance as a relationship of trust rather than authority, promoting open community dialogue, transparent decision-making processes, and citizen participation in project monitoring.”
According to Rajawat, “education was not considered a secondary issue but a key priority of the government, not just on the number of enrolments, but on whether a child from our village dared to dream big beyond their village boundaries. I worked on teacher activism and accountability and focused on keeping adolescent girls in school beyond the age when many girls often quietly drop out.”
Rajawat said, “I fought to protect common lands and biodiversity, understanding that if an ecosystem is destroyed, entire communities become impoverished. I enabled women’s economic participation through local value chains and adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards violence against women and children. I spoke openly to men, youth, and families about family planning, gender equality, and the social evils that silently undermine our daughters. This frankness may not always be pleasant, but it was necessary.”
She added, “Perhaps most importantly, I focused on behavioral change and aspirations among young people, a long-term investment that rarely makes headlines but defines an entire generation. Each of my initiatives was interconnected and designed to grow in value over time.”