Thiruvananthapuram: In a first, Kerala has nine of its 14 districts having women district collectors, giving a morale boost for women in the state and an inspiration for the rest of India.
The Left Democratic Front government in Kerala added a new woman collector for Kollam district recently, making roughly two-thirds of Kerala’s district administrations being led by women.
Five of the nine women collectors are Keralites – Pathanamthitta district collector Divya S. Iyer, Kottayam collector P.K. Jayasree, Idukki collector Sheeba George, Thrissur collector Haritha V. Kumar and Wayanad collector Geetha A.
The other four from the Indian Administrative Service hail from other Indian states – Navjot Khosa from Punjab who is the Thiruvananthapuram collector, Afsana Perveen from Jharkhand who is the Kollam collector, Mrunmayee Joshi from Maharashtra who heads the Palakkad district administration, and Bhandari Swagat Ranveerchand, also from Maharashtra, who is the Kasaragod collector.
At lower levels, too
In last year’s local body elections in Kerala, women in the state strode to victory in more than 50 per cent of the seats, helped in no small measure by the 50 per cent seat reservation for women.
In the local body polls, nearly 22,000 members were elected as representatives in 1,199 local self-government institutions across the state, including gram panchayat, block panchayat, district panchayat, and municipal corporations, of whom more than 11,000 were women.
And last week when the Kerala Administrative Service examination results were announced, women bagged the first four ranks in Stream I, with S. Malini, Nandana S. Pillai, Gopika Udayan and Athira S.V. taking the top four ranks.
However, women still lag in terms of their proportion in the state legislative assembly. The present House has only 11 women among 140 MLAs. However, three of the 11 women MLAs are ministers in the Pinarayi Vijayan cabinet.
Long way to go
The rise of women in administrative and political positions are a definite reflection of women breaking the glass ceilings across multiple sectors, but several observers feel that they have to go a long way in achieving real gender parity in what has traditionally been a patriarchal society.
“Obviously there is something positive about it, so many women coming to power. It will certainly have an impact on the young children, growing up seeing so many women in power. That psychological long-term effect is undeniable. But other than that, I don’t think having so many women in civil service will make a qualitative change”, historian, author and a faculty member at the Centre for Development Studies Thiruvananthapuram, J. Devika told Gulf News.
“There are second generation problems. If you look at the violence against women in Kerala, it is growing like nobody’s business. There’s a whole mismatch between this talk about women in Kerala being better off and the growing violence – often gruesome – inflicted on women”, says Devika.
Gives direction
Actress and psychologist Maala Parvathi says having so many women as district collectors “is a sign in the right direction”.
“It shows that the government is gender sensitive and is taking steps in that direction. There seems to be an effort in the government’s decision making to be politically correct. The rest will follow”, Parvathi said.
She said the society had entered a phase where women were exercising their choice like never before, making their own decisions, leading to significant changes in gender equations.
