THE XX FACTOR

In the recent past, several political leaders, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal have talked up their women-centric schemes.

- ARCHIS MOHAN

The governments they or their parties lead have indeed implemented schemes with women as primary beneficiaries, but they are no trailblazers.

The trailblazer's crown sits firmly on the head of J Jayalalithaa, widely recognised in Tamil Nadu as the mother of welfare schemes. During her first stint as the Tamil Nadu chief minister from 1991 to 1996, the only woman chief minister across the country, and in her subsequent tenures, Jayalalithaa provided the template for measures to empower women, beginning with the Cradle Baby scheme to discourage female infanticide. It allowed women to anonymously hand over their babies for the government to raise or put up for adoption. She opened women-run police stations, reserved a third of police jobs for women, and in later years introduced the thalikku thangam thittam, or gold for marriage, scheme. She also distributed laptops and mobile phones to women.

Inspired by the Tamil Nadu model, Odisha's Naveen Patnaik in 2001, Nitish Kumar in Bihar and MP's Chouhan, the latter two from 2005 onwards, launched pro-women policies that engendered a steadfast electoral loyalty among women. Modi, first in Gujarat and then at the Centre, with Ujjwala and Clean India campaigns, Mamata Banerjee in Bengal, and others have taken the baton. Increasingly, political parties have promised cash transfers to homemakers, besides free bus travel, subsidised cooking gas and kitchen equipment, and given bicycles and scooties to female students. On September 28, the President of India granted her assent to the Women's Reservation Bill, which reserves 33 per cent of the seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative Assemblies.

Nari shakti