‘No one tells me anything'

Khumaniya Adivasi is the sarpanch of Kafar. That’s true on paper.

But she says, “Koi naam-maatra ka sarpanch bhi nahin samajhta iss gaon mein [No one in this village considers me sarpanch].”

Khumaniya was elected unopposed to the post on June 14, 2022. The 58-year-old Sahariya Adivasi woman recalls how she was summoned to the panchayat office – the seat of local governance in her village Kafar in Madhya Pradesh. It was the first and only time she had ever been there.

“I was called only once in the beginning,” says Khumaniya, who was handed a certificate when she arrived. The document said she had been elected unopposed as sarpanch (village head). Someone had to read it out to her since she never went to school and cannot read or write.

“Hamaai panchayat mein Adivasi seat aayee hati, to gaon ke bade logan ne hamao naam de dao [When a tribal seat came up in our panchayat, influential people in the village nominated me for it]. No one stood against me,” says Khumaniya, speaking in the local Bundelkhandi language.

It has been over two years since her election as sarpanch, but most of the villagers are unaware that it is in fact she who is the village head. And the panchayat has ignored her, despite elevating her to this important post.

"Humein na koi bolaat, na kachhu bataat, na hum jaat [No one calls me to the panchayat, no one tells me anything, nor do I go],” says Khumaniya standing in front of her mud house. She looks nervous when we ask to speak. Her 65-year-old husband Natthu Pradhan tries to answer instead, but he too knows little about panchayat matters.

“Everyone thinks that he [her husband] is the sarpanch” she says about her husband, Nathu Adivasi.

Khumaniya’s ‘election’ follows implementation of the Constitution’s (Seventy-third Amendment) Act, 1992 regarding Panchayati Raj (local self governance) that makes a provision for “reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in proportion to their population. Of the reserved seats, a third are held for women SC and ST. Of the total number of seats to be filled by the direct elections, a third have to be reserved for women.”

In 2022, across the state of Madhya Pradesh, 455 women sarpanches were elected unopposed. Of these, about 64 per cent belong to Dalit and Adivasi communities.

That year, here in Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh, the post of sarpanch was reserved for a member of a Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Khumaniya – a Sahariya Adivasi – was picked. Sahariyas account for a little over a tenth of the population of 1,935 (Census 2011) in Kafar village.

The couple say they are aware of the fraud of her ‘election’ but they fear speaking out against the powerful upper castes. “Hum chhote logan ko kaun poochhat hai [Who will ask about us, the lower castes]?” she asks this reporter.

Khumaniya and her husband Natthu Pradhan are agricultural daily wage workers. Their home is a 15 x 15 square feet room; the roof is plastic tarpaulin and dried palash (Butea frondosa) leaves. There is a chulha (hearth) near the door, and household items lie around. Their younger son is a migrant worker and lives with them. The other two sons live separately, and work as daily wage labourers.

“People of our community [Adivasi] are invited to weddings, but we are made to sit on the ground and away from people of other castes,” Khumaniya tells this reporter. “Hamae saath abahi chalo kaunau ke ghar, aapko saakshat dekh mil jaye. [Come with us now, and you will get to see it in person].”

At panchayat meetings, Natthu says their presence is unwelcome. “We have to accept what they say there and can't say anything,” he adds. “Kamzor [poor] people like us hardly get any opportunity. It is the government that has made this happen. We are poor in money, family, caste, body, everywhere, how could we become a sarpanch?” Khumaniya says, speaking about the centuries of oppressions and marginalisation on communities like hers.

The village Khirkit is 20 kilometers from Kafar and a similar ‘election’ was held here. Villagers speaking anonymously said that lakhs of rupees were spent in the elections, quite beyond the capacity of the Adivasi candidates who were ‘elected’.

In Khirkit, Radha Adivasi was made sarpanch as the seat was reserved for a Scheduled Tribe woman. Radha and her husband Meehi are not educated, and are small farmers with about five bighas of land. They cultivate wheat and peanuts, and earn between Rs. 50,000-60,000 a year. Before Radha became sarpanch, they also used to work as labourers in the fields of others.

“My son taught me to sign my name,” says 40-year-old Radha, a Sahariya Adivasi, sitting on the platform outside of her house.

Meehi adds, “an earlier sarpanch made us contest the elections and assisted us.”

Later when this reporter tried to meet both women sarpanch by going to their homes over two consecutive days, he was not allowed to meet or even speak to them on the phone.

Meanwhile, the government has lost no time in publicising the numbers. At an event held in New York in May 2024 titled ‘Women in Local Governance in India Lead the Way’, India’s Ministry of Panchayati Raj showcased their work in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund and spoke about “Women in grassroots political leadership…”

Someone forgot to tell Khumaniya and Radha this.

This story was originally reported in Hindi.