How Women LEAD

Glimpses of women-led constituencies in Uttar Pradesh provide insights into the way women legislators think and work within a patriarchal system

- Rakhi Bose

THE frail frame of Bhagwan Devi, 76, a resident of Uttar Pradesh’s (UP’s) Shyamo village near Agra, is animated and angry as she raises her fists and shouts expletives. “My husband died and now the Thakur goons have taken over my land,” the agitated woman yells as she sits on a plastic chair, her two sons trying hard to contain her outburst. Bhagwan Devi alleges that the village pradhan (chief ) and lekhpal (village accountant), who belong to the upper caste community, had asked her for Rs 50,000 as a bribe to help her get back her land. “I have not eaten since morning and have walked 5 km to Agra on foot to meet the vidhayika ji (legislator). I will not leave until I get justice,” she states.

Her assertions are directed at the Agra (rural) MLA, Baby Rani Maurya, who sits across the table from Bhagwan Devi and her sons, patiently listening to her ordeal. Maurya—a cabinet minister in the Yogi Adityanath government with the women and child development department portfolio—holds Bhagwan Devi’s hand and implores her to calm down. She asks them to give her an application meant for the SDM which she signs and directs her officials to call the lekhpal and bring him to book. She says she would have done it herself, but she has a flight to catch. “I’m traveling to Bhopal on official work,” she tells Outlook, while rushing through her daily sabha which she holds in the foyer of her residence-cum-office in the Sabzi Mandi area of Agra. Amid hearing pleas—mostly pertaining to property or land-related disputes—and signing documents, Maurya finds time to attend to neighbours, who bring their children in school uniforms to meet her.