From margins to leadership: caste and gender dynamics in India’s local governance

India is one of the world’s largest countries with a quota-driven political inclusion of women. Over 1.4 million women currently serve as elected representatives in local government (Panchayati Raj Institutions), including substantial numbers from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes – as they are known in India. Yet, although there have been strides towards more diverse representation of women, it has not yielded real decision-making power or durable pathways into higher tiers of political leadership. 

Drawing on life history interviews with elected women representatives, this new report by PDAG is a comparative study between the states of Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Counter to common assumptions – what it reveals is that capacity-building and reservations  alone do not guarantee that women who are elected are able to convert their position into political authority – with gendered, class and racial norms obstructing their access to substantive power in local government.

The research offers relevant recommendations to practitioners and policy makers in India and internationally who seek to enhance their interventions for women’s political empowerment. 
 

Key messages

• Quotas expand women’s entry but do not necessarily generate upward political mobility. Reservation of seats has increased access to local office for marginalised women, but has not dismantled the caste, class or kinship-based hierarchies that shape and curtail their political ambitions.
• Women’s political agency is built through practice, not stand-alone capacity-building. Women often enter Panchayati Raj Institutions as a result of ‘proxy’ arrangements and household negotiation. They acquire authority gradually through trial and error, through engagement with administrative procedures, in meetings, and in encountering bureaucratic actors, local governance schemes, and budgets.
• Caste shapes women’s political autonomy unevenly, and often in ways that are counter intuitive. Contrary to assumptions that social advantage translates into political autonomy, Dalit and Adivasi women ofter more practice-based leadership developed from collective mobilization and labour participation than their upper-caste counterparts. 
• Authority is negotiated within caste-inflected bureaucratic and public arenas. Women representatives operate within bureaucratic systems marked by paternalism, procedural gatekeeping and caste-coded hierarchies. This means women are often approached by constituents as welfare intermediaries, rather than as decision-makers. However, many women carve out limited but meaningful authority in everyday governance.
• Male mediation is relational, shifting, and does not always disempower. Husbands and male relatives often facilitate women’s mobility, access to bureaucratic spaces, and initial legitimacy. This support can vary by caste and class. For many women, initial dependence evolves into shared decision-making and, in some cases, growing autonomy.