Abstract

Use of ICT in rural governance is an emerging phenomenon in India. In the present paper, citing various grass root realities and incidents, the author establishes a correlation between the existing gender gaps and gender discriminations in the rural society and consequent marginalization of rural women from emerging rural e-governance. In this context the author also examines the existing rural e-governance agenda of the state government and concludes that currently the gender issues are not given adequate attention and representation in it. The findings are based on a study of a rural e-governance scheme of one of the most socially and economically challenged states of India: Chhattisgarh.

Introduction

India is a country dominated by rural population. The condition of women in rural areas is worse as the gender based discriminations with strong socio cultural roots are entrenched and pervasive. In 1993, the Panchayati Raj¹(Village Level Local Self Governance) System was introduced as an instrument of rural self governance. Described as a "revolution based on maximum democracy and maximum devolution", a key feature of the system is that 33% of elected seats are reserved for women. So far, all the studies have shown that even with 33% reservation the women Sarpanchas² have not been able to equally participate in the process of rural governance. Due to the patriarchal character of the society, ability to participate equally in the process of governance has been a big challenge for the rural women. So far, this process has been undoubtedly male centric.

Introduction of ICTs is expected to bring in changes in the whole process of rural governance with sarpanchas being the users. E Gram Suraj(e-good rural governance) is a flagship e governance project of Indian State Chhattisgarh where ICT is used in Panchayati Raj System to improve its functioning .In this scheme simputers³ are provided to sarpanchas(Village Level heads of Local Self Governance) to enable them to plan their activities scientifically and to enable the rural citizen especially the weaker section such as women to get their rightful share in development using ICT tools as an engine. The use of Simputers for the village population can be described in following points⁴ :

• Simputer is an indigenously developed alternative to computer
• Low cost technology: to cost about Rs 9000 when the volumes are upwards 100,000 units.
• Suited for rural environment: long Battery life: three AAA batteries. It can also use rechargeable batteries.
• Small size , portable(pocket computer)
• Text to speech and speech to text features :it ensures that illiteracy is no longer a barrier to handling a computer.
• Multilingual

In panchayati Raj System Village Panchayat is the most important body and sarpanchas as its head is responsible for its working. In E-gram suraj project sarpanchas are primarily responsible for keeping the simputers and using it. With 33% seats reserved for Women sarpanchas (and recently the Government of Chhattisgarh has increased this quota to 50%) they are getting the simputers and are entrusted with the responsibility of using them. The present study evaluates this scheme from a gender perspective. The present case study appreciates such initiatives for rural population. The paper emphasizes upon the need for proper implementation of the scheme to benefit the women sarpanchas and to integrate gender perspective in such schemes. The paper also makes suggestions for those who plan and implement such schemes.

Methodology

Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM)⁵ is used for evaluation. GEM is a methodology that integrates a gender analysis into evaluations of initiatives that use information and communication technologies (ICTs) for social change. It provides a means for determining whether ICTs are worsening or really improving women’s lives and gender relations, as well as for promoting positive change at the individual, institutional, community and broader social levels. GEM has seven steps and all seven steps have been adopted in this study. A detail description on how GEM is used for the present study is as following,

1. Defining Intended users and Intended use
1. Intended User
1. Department of Political Science, Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India
2. Women’s Studies and Development Centre, Guru Ghasidas University, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India
2. Intended use
1. Designing a workshop for creating awareness among various stakeholders including government Officers, NGOs, academia about gender issues in rural e governance. 
2. Writing articles for newspapers and Giving radio talks with the same purpose as is mentioned in point 1.
3. Writing a reflective piece over the experiences of using GEM.
4. Preparing a research report to be available for university library for use as a reference
2. Identifying Gender and ICT issues:
• Availability
• Access and Control
• Use
• Proposes of using the technology
• Barriers
• Access and Use of Support System
• Perception
• Impact
3. Finalizing Evaluation question :
• Whether men and women are equally participating in e-gram suraj scheme?
• Whether men and women are equally benefited by e-gram suraj scheme?
4. Setting Gender and ICT indicators:
• Availability: Number Of Men And Women To Whom Technology Is Available
• Access and Control: Number of men and women having actual access to technology
• Use: Number Of Men And Women Actually Using The technology
• Proposes of using the technology: Personal, Official
• Barriers: Language Content Literacy Technology Personal
• Access And Use of Support System: Training, Maintenance and Repair of Simputers
• Perceptions of men and women about the effectiveness of technology
  1. In their work as Sarpanchas
  2. In their Daily Lives
• Effectiveness of Technology on capacity of men and women for decision making in rural governance
• Effectiveness of Technology on capacity of men and women to influence the decision making process in rural governance
5. Selecting Data Collection Methods:
• Document Review: CHIPS, Rural Development Department
• Personal Interview: Users : Structured questionnaire, Government Officers: Non- Structured Questionnaires
• Focused Group Discussions: Users
• Case Studies: Some Special Cases
• Observation: Team Members
• Daily Diaries: Team Members
• Online interaction: Software and Technological Developers
6. Analyzing Data from a Gender Perspective: The present report is the output of this analysis.
7. Putting Evaluation to work:
• A report is prepared and shared with the government officers at state level.
• The findings and suggestions are shared with government officers and others in a National Conference on E-Governance Organized by Department of Public Reforms, Government of India. Full Paper is published in the compendium, published by the conference organizers.

A combination of methods were adopted to collect data that included Personal Interviews, story telling and focused group discussions with various groups of informants.

The questionnaire based survey with 56 sarpanchas in Dongargaon Block⁶ of Chhattisgarh state was carried out during 31^st May-6^th June 2008. The second section consisted of project related questions, based on six indicators. Focused Group Discussions, separately for male and female sarpanchas, were carried out during 16^th-19^th October 2008 with the selected sarpanchas. Information from other informants like technology developers, software developers and government officers is also collected through personal interviews and online discussions. To understand the context and to analyze the data, earlier researches, government policy documents and reports have also been reviewed.

Findings

The e-gram scheme with the help of simputers in the hands of elected representatives sarpanchas, has the potential to change the process of rural governance and thus to bring in the positive changes in the lives of the rural people specially the poor and the marginalized. We appreciate the initiative taken by the state government. During our study we have found that the sarpanchas are quite happy, enthusiastic and optimistic about the use of such technology at the Gram Panchayata level.

But so far there have been no visible impacts of the scheme in the lives of the people because the scheme is not implemented properly. It is clear by the following information and analysis

1. Most of the simputers are not in working condition
2. The simputers that were deposited for repair are not yet repaired
3. Most of the simputers have wrong/incomplete/not updated information
4. No internet connectivity has been provided yet
5. No use of text to speech feature of the simputer

Our evaluation also indicates that women sarpanchas are not able to participate equally in rural e-governance.

Because firstly out of total sarpanchas, to whom simputers are available and have thus attained a chance to participate in rural e-governance, only 33% are women. These 33% women are also those who are elected from the reserved seats for women. Not a single woman is able to contest from unreserved seat. This clearly indicates that in the sphere of rural e-governance equal availability of technology to women can be ensured only with the adequate protection such as reserved allocations for women.

Secondly, the percentage of women who are actually using the simputers and thus participating in rural e-governance is much less than the male sarpanchas. 32.25% of Male sarpanchas have used the simputer to download information from it. 09.67% have transferred the data from their simputers to the computers at Janpad Panchayat office through Pen drive and 16.12% have uploaded the data in their simputers. Gender gaps are quite visible. Not a single woman has transferred the data. Only one woman has downloaded information. No woman has uploaded the data. A large number of Male sarpanchas are using/ have used simputers for their personal works like playing games, calculating, listening to songs etc. But only 40% female sarpanchas have shown any interest in all this.

This unequal participation of women sarpanchas in rural e-governance is the result of prevailing social cultural discriminations against women. It is obvious by the analysis of the factors responsible for their less participation:

1. Language, literacy, and prior exposure to technology: The content of the simputer has many words of English. Only 29% of women sarpanchas have a working knowledge of English whereas more than 66% of men posses this. The content of the simputer is mostly in Hindi. 17% of men and almost 30% of women are not even fluent in Hindi. Most of them are fluent in local dialect Chhattisgarhi. Hence women are not able to understand the content. Language skill is closely linked with the educational level. On this indicator also there is a wide gender gap. 11.7 % of women and 2.56% of men are illiterate. 20.51% men have received education higher than class 12^th. The percentage of women in this category is nil. 17.94% men have received education up to the level of Senior Secondary (12^th Pass), the percentage of women in this category is 05.88. Our evaluation shows that prior exposure to technology helps in handling the other technologies in a better manner. On this indicator also the gender differences are very obvious. 39% men and 23% women do have any prior exposure to technology. This is because women have less outside exposure than the men.
2. Content of the simputer: Many of the women do not find the content of the simputer useful and this is one of the reasons why they are not interested in using the simputers. The main reason for not finding the content of the simputers useful is that currently the content include the information only related to Gram Panchayatas and most of the women are not able to actually perform the work of the sarpanchas hence they do not find the content useful. The other reasons for not finding the content useful is women’s lack of command over English and Hindi languages.
3. Technical problems: There are many technical problems that sarpanchas are facing while using the simputers like broken parts, problems with software, and discharged batteries. Women are facing more problems because of their low education level, less exposure to technology and their less mobility.
4. Access to support system: Training and maintenance: More than 53% of female sarpanchas faced problems during the training. The problems included the problem of transportation, lunch, language, not any interest etc. Many of the women couldn’t understand anything. 90% women sarpnachas went to attend the training with a male member of the family or with sachiv (secretary of gram panchayata) because being a woman they did not find themselves able to attend the training alone. It is found that male because of their better exposure to new technologies such as mobile and in some cases computers also, are more comfortable in understanding the functioning of simputers. More over as they are better educated and better skilled as far as language is concerned it is easier for them to grasp whatever is explained during the sessions. Another advantage with men is that they can learn with fellow men whereas women do not have any such chance and training is the only place where they do have a chance to learn the technology. But the women found the duration of training not sufficient, they were not able to understand the language of the trainers, all trainers were male so women felt hesitant in asking questions There were no separate provisions for women for training hence they felt shy in asking questions. Training session should be well planned and be very simple, supported by visuals wherever is necessary, the duration of training should be longer, the language should be understandable. One to one attention should be paid to women sarpanchas. The lack of proper training certainly has resulted in lack of interest in using the technology.

   With a new technology like simputers, repair and maintenance services are very important. Because of being a new technology and because of the very little exposure of the users to any type of technology and lack of adequate training it is but natural that the simputers go out of function very frequently. No support system at the local level has been provided for repair of the simputers. The only option left to the sarpanchas at the time of any malfunctioning of the simputers is to rush to the Janpad Panchayata office that is located more that 30 kms away from some of the villages. At present, only 17.58% of total simputers are in working condition. Gender gap is quite clear even in this. 20.5% simputers owned by male sarpanchas are in working condition and only 11.76% of simputers owned by female sarpanchas are in working condition.

5. Male domination in the public domain (Rural governance): This is a very important factor. There are clear indications that women are getting representation but they are not actively participating in rural governance. They are playing a proxy role for their family members. The representation of women has not automatically led to empowerment of women. After several years, it is a big challenge for women to function in formal spaces, dominated as they are, by men. They still face considerable handicaps to their involvement in politics for example: inadequate education, the burden of reproductive and productive roles, lack of financial independence or control of assets & the opposition of entrenched cultural & religious views. During our survey we could note almost negligible role of women sarpanchas in rural governance. Husband of one of the woman sarpanchas successfully denied our access to his wife. He repeatedly told us over the phone that there was no use and no need to meet his wife as she just stayed at home that was far away from the Panchayata she was representing and she never visited the Panchayata and it was HE who performed all the duties of sarpanchas. He said that the villagers did not have any problem in this arrangement.

   One of the women sarpanchas avoided meeting us alone. She said that she had not done any thing so far without her husband. She was so adamant and so convinced with the righteousness of this stand that she got angry at us when we tried to convince her to talk to us alone in her house and finally she denied talking to us at all and her husband challenged us to publish this incident anywhere and to make any complaints in this regard to anyone. One of the women told us that she was quite interested in actually working as sarpancha and she felt that she could work well at her own but her husband would never allow her to do so and also that she felt very frustrated because of this. In most of the Villages when we entered the village and asked the villagers, “Who Is the sarpancha”, in most of the cases it was the name of the husband that was told to us and only after asking a second time and insisting on the actual name of the sarpancha did the villagers informed about the women sarpancha. Same thing had happened when we had started contacting sarpanchas over telephone. In most of the cases it was the husband of the Women sarpancha who himself told that “Myself sarpancha speaking” and only after we insisted that according to our official records it should be the seat of a women sarpancha he accepted that his wife was sarpancha. Afterwards also they kept on insisting that whatever information we needed should be asked to them, as their wives did not know anything.

6. The family member, the village community, even most of the women all seemed to be most comfortable with the situation. In case of some influential Husbands, even the officers at Janapad Panchayata (bloc level rural self government) do not insist upon the presence of women sarpancha during the official work and let the husbands do all the work. Even in the unofficial gatherings of sarpanchas, their husbands represent most of the women sarpanchas and a few who attend the meetings and make suggestions are not taken seriously.


7. This patriarchal culture of restricting women to family domain restricts their access to new technology also. It’s clear with another data. Male family members of 89% of total women sarpanchas (who do not own a mobile phone themselves) own a mobile phone. This clearly indicates that the family can afford a mobile phone but women are not considered needy enough to own one even though they are holding a responsible constitutional post. The reason is quite clear: the work related to sarpancha is performed by the male member of the family, in most of the cases husband. In one case the eagerness of one woman sarpancha to own a mobile of her own led to the conflicts with her husband and finally to the divorce. The factor of independency that is associated with the availability of new technology is becoming an issue of conflict between the male and female members of the women sarpanchas families.


8. Many incidents can be quoted to show that how the same patriarchal culture is reinforcing itself in the rural e-governance. Most of the women did not go alone to receive the simputers, to attend the training, to understand the functioning of the simputers or to deposit the simputers when out of function. They have to depend upon the help of the male family members. ICTs, can thus also pose a potential threat to women for increased dependence on men.


9. ICTs can have unintended negative impacts also. Many of the Women we surveyed do not appreciate the potential of technology to facilitate the work from their houses or from their villages. For them the necessity to visit the Janpad Panchayat office provides them with an opportunity to get out of their houses and villages and to feel a sense of power while meeting the concerned officers in their offices personally. According to most of the women this potential of simputer if exploited fully would actually, help the male members to take control of all the work and would actually snatch away even the very little opportunity that women sarpanchas are getting to get out of their houses and villages, to meet others and to learn from others or be exposed to new learnings and experiences.

Suggestions and Conclusion

We believe that this scheme has very good potential. It enabled ICTs to reach the hands of the rural people and it is already half correctly implemented after spending a budget of 2.5 Crores. Hence the implementation of the scheme according to its stated objectives should be ensured at the earliest. Following are some suggestions:

1. Equal emphasis should be given to application side.
2. Possibilities of using simputers for other official activities should be explored like monitoring of gender budgeting.
3. Information on the simputer could be expanded to include health data so that health services and information could reach the most rural of areas in India.
4. There must be a monitoring mechanism to ensure that expected impacts are achieved. To some extent the accountability should be ensured.
5. The whole process of rural e-governance should be participatory. Prior surveys to learn about the skill level, willingness, needs and aspirations of the users and expected beneficiaries should be made compulsory. In the absence of this generally the male perspective dominates the programmes planning, as the planners are mostly males.
6. There must be well-planned coordination among the various departments involved.
7. Training should be very well planned and should be gender sensitive.
8. Local expertise for repair, maintenance and training should be developed, women sarpanchas should be sufficiently trained and encouraged to do this.

Simputers certainly have the strength to improve the performance of sarpanchas but due to their inferior status the women feel that the simputers cannot be useful in empowering them as sarpanchas. Whereas the male sarpanchas feel that if use of simputers is ensured they will be able to perform better. Women feel that they are not able to deliver their duties as sarpanchas due to social cultural reasons and simputers cannot bring in any change in this social cultural sphere.

We, therefore, strongly recommend the use of ICT for rural population and along with this a gender evaluation of ICT for development initiatives should be incorporated to investigate whether ICTs are being used in ways that change gender biases and roles and do not simply reproduce and replicate existing ones. As more and more of today's development work and money is channeled into projects that employ ICTs, their effects on women are of great importance. Integrating ICTs in rural governance, without integrating gender dimension, may threaten the rural women office bearers finding themselves more marginalized.

Hence a gender-integrated approach to rural e-governance is needed. Following are some suggestions:

1. Like rural governance the rural e-governance agenda should ensure integration of gender component at each aspect like, planning, choosing the technology, language, content development, training, monitoring, evaluation, budgeting etc.
2. Gender sensitization activities should be conducted for those who are involved in the planning and implementation of rural e-governance.
3. The participation of people and organizations that are involved in the empowerment efforts for rural women should be ensured while implementing the rural e-governance schemes.
4. The simputers have an unprecedented potential of changing the lives of the rural women. But to achieve this, the needs of women, their problems and the issues that are responsible for their inferior status in the society should be taken into consideration and the use of simputers should be planned in such a way as to address those issues also. Changing the existing gender relations should be integrated in the whole agenda of use of ICTs for rural governance. Only then rural e-governance will have significant meaning for women.

To conclude, we say that use of ICTs can certainly improve the performance of sarpanchas and planning and implementation of the schemes as well. Scheme like e-gram suraj can certainly help in the empowerment of sarpanchas. Such type of efforts should be encouraged to ensure that benefits of ICTs reach to the rural people. But In Indian context, where rural women are already less visible in the public sphere due to socio–cultural factors and men already dominate, e-governance is more available and accessible to men. Hence to avoid the emergence of a gender based digital divide in rural governance that would further marginalize the rural women, it is necessary that the potential of ICTs is exploited in such a manner as to address the existing gender issues in rural governance, which are still obstructing women’s way to participate equally in the process. Women’s abilities, needs, perceptions and building women’s capacities to use the ICTs are other important factors that should be given due consideration while planning for rural e- governance to make it meaningful to women.