Over the last three decades, since the 73rd amendment, women have not only run in but also won panchayat and municipal elections.
“Yeh darwaze tak seemit hain, aur main kitchen tak jaati hun” (“He stops at the door, I can go up to the kitchen”), remarked a BJP Mahila Morcha adhyaksh, as we sat down to discuss her constituency’s booth management and door-to-door strategy back in 2013. This sentiment, highlighting the unique advantage women party workers have in reaching women voters, is one I have heard countless times in conversations with women workers from various political parties. Since 2012, I have engaged with thousands of party workers and observed numerous elections and campaigns nationwide.
Unlike most election observers and political scientists, who mostly talk to men, I have spoken with both men and women party workers. Each election cycle has revealed an impressive pattern: Women party workers are building stronger, more granularly developed party organisations that often extend from the district level down to the level of the booth. This trend is evident not just in the BJP, but across various parties, especially those successful in winning panchayat and municipal elections. What has captured my imagination is not merely the increasing turnout of women voters or the proliferation of pro-women welfare schemes. It is the rise of ordinary party women, the unsung backstage actors, who play a crucial role in shaping the political landscape. Their contributions, often overlooked, are integral to the success and dynamism of India’s participatory democracy.
Indian democracy has witnessed a remarkable phenomenon: Women’s electoral turnout has not only matched but surpassed that of men. Despite a slight dip in turnout in this election, the overarching trend remains strong. This surge in electoral participation coincides with the endlessly growing list of distributive promises, including the recent passing of the women’s reservation bill in Parliament. Why are parties courting women? The rise of grassroots women party workers, or “party women” is driving this new era of women voter-party linkages.
Academic research and political pundits have largely ignored or, worse, caricatured these women as a token presence. However, the significant participation of women at polling booths and as campaign workers, coupled with gains in welfare schemes and gender reservation, has forced a reckoning. Traditional notions that Indian women voters lack agency or autonomy from family structures have been discredited. After all, why would parties promise welfare schemes to women if it were enough to speak to their husbands? Or why are women turning out in greater numbers and increasingly supporting the BJP? Turnout precedes electoral promises, indicating that women are not turning out because of these promises; rather, the promises are a response to their increased turnout and political engagement.
What does my research suggest? Over the last three decades, since the 73rd amendment, women have not only run in but also won panchayat and municipal elections. To stay electorally competitive and upwardly mobile, these ambitious women have strengthened local party organisations. This has ended the era when women’s party wings were led exclusively by elites.
A glance at any party’s Mahila Morcha banners reveals this transformation. Today’s women’s wings include district heads, ward adhyakshas, booth-level managers, and panna pramukhs — with significant variation within and between parties, time, and space. Women who contest elections rely on these loyal party workers, often more so than their male counterparts, as it is typically easier for women to claim credit for mobilising fellow women. Motorbike rallies organised by women party workers — one of the few women party events that make media headlines — exemplify how women claim credit and secure party tickets in the run-up to elections.
How does grassroots organising by ordinary women party workers explain the gender shift in India’s politics? Consider voter turnout: India boasts some of the most robust door-to-door campaigns, with nearly 60 per cent of voters contacted by party workers each national election as measured in post-election surveys. Until 2009, men dominated campaign mobilisation, primarily reaching male voters. Since then, thanks to two decades of quota elections and effective grassroots organising, women campaign workers have increasingly taken on voter mobilisation roles. By entering households, they have reached both men and women more equally.
These efforts have revealed the untapped potential of the women’s vote, prompting parties to make targeted electoral offers to woo women voters. These distributive offers are a direct result of the labour of women’s party workers. Beyond elections, women party workers organise countless events, ranging from planting drives to dharnas and seva abhiyans, mobilising women from a range of social groups such as Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and Anganwadi workers for party activities, and keeping them engaged in politics between election cycles. Availability of administrative data on turnout offers clearer insights into election participation, however women’s participation also transcends the polling booths. We are witnessing women’s unprecedented involvement in protests, with the recent farmers’ protests being a prime example.
What explains the rising BJP advantage among women voters? The BJP has benefited the most from increasingly vocal women voters, partly because its women’s wing is the strongest, most granular, and active. BJP party women have played a major role in mobilising women as an electorate because the party offers them more opportunities to rise in the ranks and build careers, especially if they lack dynastic or wealth power. Other parties’ inability to offer opportunities has hindered their ability to attract and select women candidates who can develop strong grassroots organisations. Tragically, no party offers real opportunities to women, but the BJP has fared relatively well. Additionally, the BJP offers a mix of religious ideology and patriotic narrative that helps Hindu women overcome social and family barriers to join the party.
In addition to counting heads and welfarism, the act of gendered credit claiming will play an increasingly central role in shaping party-voter linkages in India, a trend that will deepen with the implementation of gender reservation in Parliament. Is the growing participation of women a force that strengthens India’s democracy, or does it exacerbate its democratic decline? What is evident is that women’s political agency is indispensable to India’s democratic future.
The writer is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Department of Politics and the School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University
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