Revision as of 19:16, 24 December 2015

Panchayat rankings, state-wise, 2009-10 and 2014-15; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, August 4, 2015

SC upholds minimum education criteria for elections

The Times of India, Dec 11 2015

AmitAnand Choudhary  SC upholds law fixing edu criteria for panchayat polls

The SC verdict of Dec 2015 upholding the minimum education criteria for Panchayat elections; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Dec 11 2015

In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court upheld the Haryana government's law mandating minimum educational qualifications as a prerequisite for contestants in panchayat polls. A bench of Justices J Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre said education is an essential tool for a bright future and plays an important role in the development and progress of the country and elected representatives must have some educational background to enable them to effectively carry out their duties.

This is the first time that the court has upheld that minimum educational criteria can be fixed for candidates and illiterates debarred from the electoral arena. The order validates a similar law passed by Rajasthan, the first state to do so. The apex court rejected a bunch of petitions filed by some women contestants challenging the validity of the law mandating educational qualifications -Class 10 pass for men, Class 8 pass for women and Class 5 pass for Dalits -for contesting panchayat polls Haryana. The law also disqualifies those who don't have toilets at home and had not repaid agricultural loans or defaulted on electricity bills and other arrears to government authorities. The court upheld the law despite noting that a major chunk of the people would be disqualified from contesting the polls. More than 83% of rural wom en above 20 years and almost 67% of women in urban areas are likely to be disqualified under the law while 68% of the SC women and 41% of SC men would be ineligi ble. In a big boost to the NDA's sanitation drive, it also ruled that Haryana's decision to bar candidates without toilets at home from contesting panchayat polls is a “good decision“.

Haryana’s minimum academic qualifications for panchayat candidates: 2015 timeline; Graphic courtesy: The Times of IndiaDec 21 2015

A critique of the Rajasthan and Haryana laws

The Times of India Dec 20 2015

Rema Nagarajan’s view of the proportion of people who cannot contest (%); Graphic courtesy: The Times of India Dec 20 2015

Rema Nagarajan

About 90% of women and 95% of Dalit and tribal women in Rajasthan can't become sarpanch or zilla parishad members as they are not educated enough. And yet they're eligible to become an MP, minister or even PM.

Haryana has a similar law that's been upheld by SC I magine a law that bars over 94% of women of eligible age from contesting a local election in a democracy . Or, one that bars almost 97% of Dalit and tribal women from contesting for a public office.Strange as that sounds, that's exactly what a law passed by the Rajasthan government has done.Similarly , in Haryana, the government has passed a law that has made almost 70% of its women unfit to contest. And this law has been upheld by the highest court.

If this large a proportion of the population being excluded from contesting for the posts of sarpanch, or zilla parishad or panchayat samiti posts seems alarming in a democracy , then a closer look at the data from the 2011 census on age group-wise educational qualifications for different communities in each state reveals an even more worrying picture of extreme exclusion of Dalits and tribals, especially women in these communities, who are doubly damned. The biggest irony is that every one of those being excluded from these local elections would be eligible to be a Member of Parliament or even the Prime Minister of the country as no educational qualifications are necessary for these posts.

Anyone contesting for these panchayat posts has to be above 21 years. But only a small fraction of those contesting these elections would be in their 20s, especially among women. Across all communities, the higher the age group, the lower the average educational level and, hence, the lower the proportion of people who can contest.

Thus, in Haryana, among all women above 20 years, 68.4% would be ineligible. However, if we were to consider women aged 40 or more, over 90% would be excluded including among Dalit women, for whom the educational cut-off is lower -class 5 -against the class 8 cut-off for others. Among Dalit men, for whom the educational requirement is class 8 pass, 70% of those aged 35 or more would be excluded.

In Rajasthan, the picture is even more dismal in the non-scheduled areas. (In scheduled areas, the minimum qualification to contest for a sarpanch's post is lower, at class 5.) To contest for a zilla parishad post, one has to have a minimum qualification of class 10 pass. That excludes 86% of the overall population and 94% of women in the state.Among men and women aged 50 and above, 90% and 99% respectively, are now barred.

When it comes to the post of sarpanch, the educational cut off is completion of middle school or class 8 pass in Rajasthan. This means that three-quarters of the men aged 40 and above and over 95% of women aged 35 or more are disqualified. Among Dalits, this criteria leads to exclusion of 99% of 40-plus women and over 80% of 35-plus men. In rural Rajasthan, the literacy rate is about 76% for men and 46% for women. Literacy being merely the ability to read and write, the proportion of those who have completed primary or any higher level is extremely low, especially among those over 20 years of age.

Several activists point out the unfairness of penalizing an older generation that had little or no access to education, adding that it is their great knowledge and experience of local needs and circumstances that has made so many of them such outstanding perform ers in their panchayats.

“Our case challenging the con stitutionality of the Rajasthan law is pending in the high court. Bu with the Supreme Court judgment in the Haryana law case, we have lost all hope. In one fell swoop, large sections of the population have been put out of the race.Their democratic rights are being attacked and this will spread to other states. The worst affected will be women and other weaker sections. Since the right to educa tion came up, has the government managed to fulfil its obligation? If they did not, what right do they have to bring in such a law?“ asked Satish Kumar of the Centre for Dalit Rights in Rajasthan.

Incidentally , the level of education is just one of the criteria for exclusion in the two states. They have additional criteria for exclusion such as a two-child norm, functional toilet at home, and no pending power bills or loan payments. If these criteria are also taken into account, the exclusions would be even bigger and would be from among the poorest and most disadvantaged communities.

While Panchayati Raj was supposed to be an exercise in deepening democracy, these extremely high exclusions at the grassroots, especially of the most disadvantaged, seem to be moving rural Haryana and Rajasthan towards a plutocracy , defined as a society ruled or controlled by a small minority of the wealthiest citizens.