To what extent has 73rd and 74th amendments of the Indian Constitution enhanced women’s empowerment? (2020, 15 Marks)
Articles 243D and 243T reserve not less than one-third of seats for women in panchayats and municipalities alike, and 243D one-third of panchayat chairs. The symmetry on paper conceals an asymmetry in practice: the Amendments enhanced empowerment substantially in villages, more thinly in cities, and — unexpectedly — most of all in the national argument about women in politics.
Panchayats: the deeper gain
- Women hold about 46% of panchayat seats, well above the floor, as over twenty states have moved to half.
- First-generation leaders have become role models: Fathima Bi, sarpanch of Kalva in Kurnool, won a UNDP award for organising village women into self-help and credit groups. Women-led panchayats have shifted spending towards drinking water and sanitation.
- The gram sabha, open to every adult, gives even non-elected women a forum.
Municipalities: presence without much power
- Party gatekeeping — urban contests are fought on party tickets, and wards reserved for women often go to relatives of displaced male corporators.
- A ceremonial chair — mayors serve short terms, rotated among reserved categories; in Delhi the first year of each municipal term goes to a woman. Executive power lies with a state-appointed commissioner, and a NITI Aayog framework of April 2026 called the mayor’s stature “largely symbolic”. A woman mayor such as R. Priya, Chennai’s first Dalit woman mayor (2022), inherits prestige more than authority.
- Thin participation — wards committees are required only in cities above three lakh and area sabhas rarely exist, so urban women have no gram-sabha equivalent.
- Yet the quota builds careers: Rikhil Bhavnani (American Political Science Review, 2009) found women in Mumbai about five times likelier to win wards that had been reserved in the previous election, even after reservation lapsed. Cities also offer a distinct agenda of women’s safety in public space — street lighting, women’s toilets, the Safe City projects funded from the Nirbhaya Fund in eight metropolises — though state agencies, not councils, largely run it.
Feedback into national politics
The 106th Amendment (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023) reserves one-third of Lok Sabha and assembly seats for women. The bills of 1996–2008 had foundered partly on the charge that reserved women would be proxies; thirty years of local evidence answered it. But the Act, notified on 16 April 2026, operates only after delimitation on the first census following it (Article 334A), and the 131st Amendment Bill to hasten this failed in the Lok Sabha on 17 April 2026, 298 to 230. Women remain 13.6% of the Lok Sabha.
Weighing the extent
| Dimension | Panchayats | Municipalities |
|---|---|---|
| Presence | About 46% | High, but party-filtered |
| Agency | Growing with tenure | Constrained by party and short terms |
| Power | A share of a weakly devolved body | A share of a commissioner-run body |
Conclusion
To a large extent in presence and in legitimising women’s claim to the legislatures; to a moderate extent in rural agency; to a limited extent in urban power. The Amendments empowered women about as far as they empowered the institutions — which is not far enough.