Panchayati Raj Institution: Ground Truth of Political Empowerment Status of the Marginalized Tribal Women in Jhargram Districts, West Bengal, India

Bringing women in decision making process through the implementation of Panchayati Raj Institution enhances women’s political empowerment. Appearance of women in grass root politics ensures two-way benefits. First, it boosts their economic, social and political status. Second, it makes the democracy stronger and more meaningful. This study mainly aims to assess the nature of the exact scenario of political empowerment through participation and representation of marginalized tribal women in active politics. This study truly relies on the primary data base which has been collected through a well-structured questionnaire survey by applying purposive stratified random sampling technique in the tribal dominated villages of Jhargram District. Political Empowerment Index has been calculated to define the exact scenario. The study reveals that more than half of the tribal women represent the Panchayati Raj Institution mainly because of the mandatory reservation system for women. More than 80 percent of the tribal women are less interested and aware about active political participation in grass root decision making process. Majority of tribal women agree about the lack of education, training, family pressure, caste discrimination, non-cooperation from male political leaders is the major hindrances in the path of their successful progress in the political arena. Finally, this research extracts the fact that the entry in grass root politics has no doubt opened a new door for the tribal women to be politically empowered but this seems a fallacy because of low level of political empowerment index value. Thus, it could not be wrong to say that there is a wider gap between the constitutional opportunity and the real exercise in the power game in Panchayati Raj Institution. These sections of marginalized tribal women have to go a long journey for achieving the desired goal of political empowerment.