The X Factor in #Polls2024
Women voters, cutting across geography, class and religion, are poised to tilt the scales in this year's general election. EPISODE #177
Dear Reader,
A very happy Monday to you.
Last week I stumbled upon a news clip featuring Pradeep Gupta, CMD of Axis My India and the psephologist with the golden touch in calling elections. In an interview to India Today TV, he argued that in this general election the women voter will influence the outcome.
Pradeep is implicitly suggesting that this general election will formally anoint women as a key cohort in electoral politics. It is not that they were not important earlier. But, to break ranks and then decidedly swing the verdict is a first.
We have had enough signals to this effect in the recent round of state elections. In short, Indian women are hitting the reset in their terms of engagement with the rest of society. This is a powerful makeover.
This week I try and unpack this new trend in Indian politics. The cover picture is sourced from Press Information Bureau and features two women posing for the camera after they voted in this general election.
Happy reading.
Her Election
Like I said in the introduction, I stumbled upon a news clip featuring Pradeep Gupta of Axis My India, in which he flagged what I believe to be the standout trend in this general election: The coming out of women voters.
In the interview, he said:
“I can tell you one thing, not in terms of number of seats: the woman voter in a particular community is voting totally different from the male voter.
I am telling you (they are voting) totally differently to the male voter with full conviction.”
If indeed this trend does hold then we will look back at the general election as a benchmark moment on how gender influenced electoral outcomes. India will have reworked the terms of its polity like never before.
Very timely, given that the country is readying for reservation of a third of seats in Parliament and state legislatures from the next general election in 2029.
Female Voters
To be sure this makeover has not come about overnight or happening in a vacuum.
First off, the turnout of female voters has been growing since the turn of this Millennium. They have slowly and steadily closed the gender gap.
In fact, the graphic above, sourced from Carnegie Endowment, shows us that the voter turnout worm for women, caught-up and then actually topped their male counterparts. This was the first indication that women are valuing their vote and are beginning to exercising the freedom of choice.
This is not happening in isolation. The gender gap in education and sex ratio too have been shrinking over the last two decades.
Check out the graphic below sourced from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5). It reveals that the sex ratio for the total population went up from 991 females (per 1,000 males) in 2015-16 to 1,020 in 2019-21. Similarly, in the same period, the sex ratio at birth improved from 919 to 929.
Similarly, NFHS-5 reveals that the literacy gap too is shrinking, albeit at a slower pace.
Check out the graphic below.
Shifting Sands
Coincidentally, this weekend I joined a bunch of curious fellow travellers to the political constituencies of Gorakhpur and Deoria. On the ground, thanks to the good offices of Pafi India, one could experience first hand the changing contours of women voters.
The encounter with a group of women entrepreneurs under the aegis of Dharmalife, a non-profit devoted to creating women entrepreneurs in rural India, was an eye opener.
Seven of them—featured seated in the picture above—who travelled to Gorakhpur from all parts of Uttar Pradesh, patiently walked us through their entrepreneurial journey and the transformative impact it was having on their lives and gender relations, both within the family and the village.
Their self-confidence, comfort among strangers, including men, was staggering to observe first hand. Such was their ease of engagement, some of them even subjected us to their rustic humour.
Take Reeta for example, seated third from the right, who told us that she had never ventured out of the house till she joined Dharmalife.
“The first time I went out of my home, I covered my face completely with my sari as I felt very diffident and shy. But, I soon realised that this was an impediment in either looking at someone, leave alone talking to them. Gradually, I got over my shyness and became more confident. My husband supported me, especially since I could earn some steady income to support his on-off earnings.”
Reeta then added that the extra household income was helping the couple address their aspirations.
“This improved economic outlook for our household, has enabled us to explore better schooling for our children, buy better clothes.”
I am sharing a clip below from Dharmalife, which provides a quick overview of how the NGO prepares women to become rural entrepreneurs.
According to 32-year old Reeta, challenging status quo around her was not easy. She recalled how when she wore a maxi dress at home for the first time, her father-in-law called the local police to complain about her sartorial choice. She received unexpected support from the police officer:
“The officer told my father-in-law that you have to change with times. Look at the cities and see that women are wearing jeans, shirts and so on.
In Reeta’s case, she is only wearing a maxi and too at night. What is wrong with it. It is time you changed your old ways of thinking.”
The thing is what I witnessed in Gorakhpur is not one-off. As a regular reader of this newsletter, you will be aware of my efforts to connect the dots on women empowerment. Steadily, this change is acquiring a momentum. And, the consequences of this on a household are significant.
Shashank Mani Tripathi, the BJP’s candidate for the Lok Sabha from Deoria, explained it best in his must read book: Middle of Diamond India: National Renaissance through Participation and Enterprise.
“Women are balance sheet builders, while men are profit and loss people.’
What this means is that given any resource, women are likely to use it for the long-term benefit of society. They invest in their child’s health or in education, in an enterprise, etc. Men tend to spend much of the money on immediate needs—tobacco, alcohol, food, clothing.”
One consequence of this altered social landscape is voting behaviour of women. In the recent round of state elections, we have ample evidence of how the cohort of women overwhelmingly tilted the scales.
In the case of Karnataka they were instrumental in handing the Congress party a landslide win. However, in Madhya Pradesh, they embraced the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and re-elected them with a crushing majority.
Advantage Modi
The obvious question is which way will the pendulum swing in the ongoing 18th general election. Going by anecdotal evidence and the hints from Pradeep Gupta I cited earlier, it is evident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and consequently the BJP are the likely gainers.
If indeed this does pan out, I will not be surprised. Consistently for the last decade, PM Modi has worked to empower women in incredible ways.
You will recall the audacious speech of PM Modi on 15 August 2014—his debut Independence Day speech. Departing from convention, the PM put the spotlight on a shameful legacy deficit: lack of toilets.
Putting a spin on this challenge, he said:
Brothers and Sisters, we are living in the 21st century.
Has it ever pained us that our mothers and sisters have to defecate in the open? Whether the dignity of women is not our collective responsibility?
The poor womenfolk in villages wait for night; until darkness descends, they can’t go out to defecate. What bodily torture must they be feeling?
How many diseases might this act engender? Can’t we make arrangements for toilets for the dignity of our mothers and sisters?
Tag to this the effort to reach tap water to all of India, another painful legacy of neglect. In 2019, 72 years after gaining Independence, only 1.94% of rural households in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, had access to drinking water.
Worse, this negligence is fatal. According to the report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently, saturation access to drinking water would have saved upto 4 lakh diarrhoeal deaths every year.
Similarly, the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), rolled out on 1 May 2016 in Balia, Uttar Pradesh (UP), provided a cooking gas connection in the name of the woman of the household. Not only did it provide clean cooking fuel, it also alleviated, in most cases, the drudgery of women trekking distances to collect firewood.
As of March 1, 2024, the women in 10.27 crore households have received a cooking gas connection under PMUY. Assuming four members to a family, this would mean that this welfare programme alone has impacted 40 crore Indians, especially the homemakers, who are inevitably women.
Pradeep of AxisMyIndia summed up best as to why PM Modi holds the electoral advantage in this context.
In his contribution to the edited volume on Modi@20, he said:
“While previous governments promised empowerment of women, Modi made it a reality by opening Jan Dhan accounts that enabled them to receive direct cash transfers. Women could have cash in hand that they could call their own and spend according to their wishes.
Women became the proud owners of their homes under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. They were no longer at the mercy of the men in their house.
Their position was elevated significantly in their homes and, by extension, in society. Everything that was in the files and works, became a reality in the very lifetime of these women.”
With the benefit of hindsight it is clear that one of the biggest legacies of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been its ability to bank people at staggering scale.
Last September, India celebrated the ninth anniversary of PMJDY. In this period, India managed to bank 50.09 crore people—more than the population of the US. As a result, the proportion of adults holding a bank account rose from 30% in 2014 to 80% at present.
Further,
55.6% (27.82 crore) Jan Dhan account holders are women;
66.7% (33.45 crore) of Jan Dhan accounts are in rural and semi-urban areas.
As I have written previously, simultaneously, there has been a massive rollout of physical infrastructure, especially of rural roads and national highways.
The growth has been astounding in the last decade. For example, development of national highways more than doubled to 9,304 km in 2023. Similarly, the rural roads project, since its launch in 2000 till 2014 completed 3.81 lakh km; over the next decade this grew by 7.23 lakh km.
This convergence of digital, physical and social infrastructure is creating the basis for gradually bridging the gap in the ease of living. Where earlier access to basics like toilets, cooking gas, banking, electricity, telephones and so on was a privilege, today this is universalised.
Innovations like Bhashini—featured below—are accelerating this process by bridging the divide in languages. In a country like India, which recognises 22 official languages, most citizens, not proficient in English, are at a disadvantage. Bhashini, the AI driven language translator is an innovation solving for this challenge.
If we connect all the dots, we etch a picture of a powerful and compelling makeover of India’s socio-economic framework.
Even a decade ago, about 500-600 million Indians—more than the population of the United States—were outside looking in. Today, it is the other way around. This kind of a makeover has the potential to be a force multiplier, especially for the cohort of women.
We will know for sure only on 4 June.
Recommended Viewing/Reading
Sharing the latest post of Capital Calculus on StratNews Global.
Two years ago, India launched its most ambitious digital project: Bhashini. Recently, the project provided its most high-profile proof of concept, when Gates Foundation chairman Bill Gates and Prime Minister Narendra Modi engaged each other without the customary interpreters. And this even though the PM spoke in Hindi.
Instead, Gates was equipped with a headpiece powered by Artificial Intelligence, which enabled a real-time translation of PM Modi’s remarks in Hindi. To unpack the contours and scope of this project that seeks to bridge the language divide by allowing India’s 22 languages to converse with each other using this innovation, I spoke to Amitabh Nag, CEO, Bhashini.
Sharing the link below. Do watch and share your thoughts and spread the word among your friends—this is a game changer and more of us need to know about the potential of this innovation.
Till we meet again next week, stay safe.
Thank You!
Finally, a big shoutout to Deepak, Premasundaran, Ranjini and Balesh for your informed responses, kind appreciation and amplification of last week’s column. Once again, grateful for the conversation initiated by all you readers. Gratitude also to all those who responded on Twitter and Linkedin.
Unfortunately, Twitter has disabled amplification of Substack links—perils of social media monopolies operating in a walled garden framework. I would be grateful therefore if you could spread the word. Nothing to beat the word of mouth.
Reader participation and amplification is key to growing this newsletter community. And, many thanks to readers who hit the like button😊.
Hello Anil:
This piece hits the mark. We are witnessing liberation of more than 1/2 of India’s population. This has revolutionary consequences not just for India, but the entire Subcontinent, then extending into West Asia, Central Asia, Africa, and beyond for, when India rises, they all rise). And too, this is happening organically, from within, and not at the behest of any external power. What was once considered the province of Western governments and NGOs to thrust upon India as part of governance control agendas is now India’s own agenda, making outsiders irrelevant.
Why do I bring up external forces? Because, in many ways, India’s social deficiencies, and prior inability to deal with them effectively, have historically constituted vulnerabilities for India’s autonomy, and, by extension, national security. What today’s Indians are doing is enacting the second chapter of self-determination (the first one being the freedom struggle). When women rise, a society rises to great power status, both materially and spiritually. Vivekananda remarked, “India discovered God, Europe discovered man, America discovered woman”. The last bit forged the American Century in the 20th Century. The rise of Indian women will make this century the Indian Century and the Global South Century. Mark it!
Thank you for covering yet another critical facet of India’s unfolding 21st Century story.
Shiv
Loved the piece. Touching to read about the transformative stories of women in rural India.
I am confident, we are poised to change as a nation.