The role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as a tool for all-around development has attracted sustained attention throughout the world. At the same time, it is the stark reality that the benefits of ICTs have been unevenly distributed within and between countries all over the world. Experience indicates that women are the worst sufferers in the process. Until and unless discrimination against women is addressed specifically, there will be every risk that ICTs would exacerbate existing inequalities between men and women. In developing societies the social discrimination trap is very strong – this highlights the ways in which men’s and women’s, girls’ and boys’ experiences of poverty differ. The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index for the year 2007, ranks India 114^th among 128 countries. This index comprises four indicators, namely, economic, political, and educational and health subjects. All these four are intricately related to the status of women. Though the study of empowerment of women as a whole is not the present task, yet these parameters have to be referred because of their influence on overall empowerment process.

Mainstreaming the gender perspective is essential to achieve parity between men and women where mainstreaming is a process of assessing the implications for women and men in respect of any planned action in all areas and at all levels. Therefore, gender dimensions of ICTs in terms of access and use, their capacity-building opportunities, employment and engagement in productive works etc. are explicitly identified and addressed for deriving decent outcome. In general terms, this process is considered as engendering ICTs for the empowerment of women. Women are focused upon because of their exclusion and invisibility in the development projects.

In this respect, women in development approach advocated that women should be treated on equal terms with men. By mid 1980s, women in development highlighting shifted from equity aspects to anti - poverty measures to efficiency with strong emphasis on income–generation activities and skill development strategies for women. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on women in 1995 also called for the empowerment of women through enhancing their skills, knowledge, access to, and use of information technologies. The importance of these theoretical perspectives has high value.

Translation of these perspectives into appropriate policy of the respective national government and implementation of the plans and programmes however, has left much to be desired. When ICTs are added as enabling tools to the overall agenda of empowering women, complexity of the theoretical perspectives became deepened. As indicated in a publication of the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (2006), “there has been a tendency on the part of different governments and development agencies to treat technologies as neutral, value-free, without taking into account the social, environmental and economic effects of the technology being introduced.” Commonly it is assumed that the mere presence of technology itself can improve efficiency and therefore it will bring benefits to the community. This approach of the policy-makers and implementing agencies only focuses on growth (in terms of numbers) and building of infrastructure related to IT, but not on the equity. This argues for integrating women’s equality into any ICT strategy.

The present study is taken up in this context with special reference to India and West Bengal, a state in India. The empowering process of women in India started predominantly from the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980-85) when obligatory quota of benefits for women in different poverty alleviation programmes had been made. This process reached its zenith when the Government of India brought in 73^rd and 74^th Amendments to the Constitution of India in the year 1992 for at least one third reservations of seats and offices in favour of women in rural and urban local self governments (panchayats and municipalities respectively). In rural areas, local self governments have three tiers at villages, blocks, and districts. This reservation is applicable to all three tiers. As a consequence thousands of women in rural and urban India have been liberated from their kitchens and brought into positions of authority and responsibility in the panchayats and municipalities. They became the members of political community at the same time, because to be the members of local self government they have to contest party-based general elections at an interval of five years. In the present paper the case of rural women is portrayed only because within women, rural women are at disadvantage. An overall background of women members of the three tier panchayats is presented for an understanding of their socio-economic status. This is essential for linking them with the ICTs. Apart from overall scenario at the national level, this paper focuses down even more tightly to look at the experiences in West Bengal where an alliance of the Left parties under the leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxists) has been governing from the year 1977.

Apart from the introductory part, the paper is structured into three sections. Section 1 presents the socio-economic characteristics of elected women representatives in panchayats from the secondary sources; then section 2 proceeds to examine the ICT context in India generally and in West Bengal specifically. In section 3, the existing facilities for getting access to ICTs in West Bengal is discussed through examples from grass-roots investigations in different districts. Participation of women in rural areas in the self help group mode programmes is a pro-active step towards their empowerment – this is also assessed in this section through West Bengal’s experiences

Section 1

A nation wide study on elected women representatives in the panchayats published by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Govt. of India (2008) shows that 45 percent of the women representatives are between 36 and 50 years. Mean age of female members is found to be 39.8 years. The nation wide study shows that in comparison to male representatives (31%), a higher proportion of female representatives (41%) are from the age group 21-35 years. This reflects that at an all India level, female representatives tend to be younger than their male counterparts – this is a source of male domination in local government activities.

At all India level, 48 percent of women members had completed middle school while 19 percent are illiterates. An analysis of the gender differences vis-à-vis educational attainments shows that the male representatives were more educated than their female counterparts. The proportion of male representatives who had passed middle school or above was 70 percent, in comparison to, 40 percent for females. Naturally, the proportion of illiterates was higher in the case of women (24%) than in men (6%).

This also is an influential factor in subordinating women members in day to day functioning of the local governments. 54 percent of the female members at all India level reported their primary occupation as household work with respect to time spent. With this background, it can easily be understood that ICT intervention in favour of women requires convergence of efforts. Many women panchayat members are hesitant and tentative in rising to the occasion. Officials at different levels of administration in the villages, blocks and districts usually take advantage of the inexperience and poor education of the women panchayat members in the three tiers of the panchayat structure. The predominant scenario is that young age and inexperience of women members coupled with their low education standard often crippled them from a rightful allocation of functions and responsibilities. The men of the villages including those in the political parties also do not accord women members due respect and regard.

Section 2

The Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) of India envisages the objective of faster and inclusive growth. New initiatives envisaged in the plan document include providing all public services at the door of common man through common service delivery outlets and ensuring efficiency, transparency, and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man. Promotion of e-governance through newer technology development, entrepreneurship, and innovation in ICTs is of paramount importance in the Eleventh Five Year Plan. The Eleventh Five Year Plan document claims that “breakthroughs in technology and innovative applications have brought vast benefits to various sectors and sub-sectors of the economy of the country.” But no mention is there whether these benefits give equal benefits to all categories of people irrespective of their caste and sex.

Many states have already taken initiatives in computerization of the district administration and citizen-centric services, land records, promoting markets of rural products etc. The women participation in all these initiatives remains a question, however. Wide spread illiteracy in India is a serious concern – India is home to more than a third of the world’s illiterate population (UNESCO, 2004). High illiteracy limits the population’s capacity to acquire the basic skills needed for an innovation economy. This remains a major hurdle in the process of empowerment of women also. A focus on the gender dimensions of information and communications technology can prevent an adverse impact of the digital revolution or the perpetuation of the existing inequalities and widespread discrimination on one hand, and on the other hand it can enhance the scope for equitable access of women to the benefits of ICTs. Access to and use of ICTs is very crucial in any policy for ICT expansion. The Eleventh Five Year Plan in the document admits that information technology has contributed tremendously to the progress of the countries, but does not give any guarantee that the gender differences will be fully addressed so that such technologies actively promote gender equality and alleviate the gender – based disadvantages.

Both strategies and perspectives for informatisation in India have tended to be very techno-centric. To move away from techno-centrism requires going beyond the determinisms and other limitations of informational and cultural responses. Information culture is to be conceived at multiple levels even within the rural areas. Field data shows that the computers are installed in the gram panchayat, block and district offices by the Government of West Bengal for e-governance, but in general the elected representatives do not even like to touch them. This is true for both men and women members. This is mainly due to the low level formal education even to understand the minimum skill for running a computer.

The capacity building programmes of the State Government is mainly concerned with the Acts and Rules of the panchayats and guidelines of programmes implemented through the panchayats. As huge funds (on an average around Rs.40-50 lakhs (1 lakh=100,000=$2240 USD) in case of gram panchayats and Rs.1-3 crore (1 crore=10,000,000=$224,000 USD) to the panchayat samitis) are allotted to the panchayats, its appropriate tracking is not possible without use of computers. But the panchayat representatives irrespective of men and women mostly have low awareness about information (better to say data) and its necessity. Information literacy in this context can be defined as the ability to access, know where to find, evaluate and use information from different sources. It involves communication, critical thinking, and problem solving skills. With low educational attainments or without any literacy, it is utmost difficult to cope with these requirements.

For improving the functioning of the panchayats at three tiers, the Department of Panchayats and Rural Development in West Bengal has undertaken initiatives since the year 2003-04 for computerizing the accounts of all three tiers. This has been done to improve the financial management of these bodies. The ICT infrastructure of the panchayats are being strengthened and all the gram panchayats having electricity have acquired two PCs with accessories, one for accounting related works and the other for programme management. At the end of the year 2008-09, in West Bengal still there are 180 gram panchayats where there is no electricity – they have no access to computers also. The panchayat samitis (at block level) have computers and most of them have internet connectivity though many of such connections are dial-up type with slow speed. However, the State Government has given permission to use data card to all the gram panchayats and panchayat samitis. But all the facilities so far extended to the panchayat offices are mostly accessed by the officials, not by the local level elected people’s representatives. As the majority of officials are men (women have share less than 20 per cent) so the ICT facilities have very little beneficial impact on women at the local level.

Section 3

The West Bengal Panchayat Act, 1973 empowers the panchayats in all three tiers to plan for and implement programmes for ensuring economic development and social justice in the rural areas. The members who have to discharge the responsibilities enshrined in the Act have many gaps in their capability to assess the information needed. Due to the low level of education and understanding about data requirement, the process of data generation and sources is mostly hazy to women representatives. The predominantly use of language English seems to be a strong barrier to the majority of the panchayat members, particularly those at the village and block levels.

The elected representatives at the district level have better educational attainment than those at those at lower two tiers. For example, 44 percent of women members in district tier of the panchayats have middle school completion of study while the corresponding figures for the blocks and gram panchayats are 39 and 27 percent respectively. Simply the use of English as a medium of communication debars a large number of women members from the information loop. If the ability to locate, evaluate and effective use of information in multiple manners does not get due priority in the agenda of women empowerment, it is likely that the benefits of social transformation due to the advent and spread of the information and communication technologies will not reach the women as they are the largest group among the adult non-literate population in West Bengal, also in India.

ICTs affect all aspects of women’s lives. For example, ICTs can provide women with skills, training, and information for their family based enterprises (such as self help group products). When the beneficiaries of ICTs are young, urban-based, and fairly good understanding of English it can be seen that overwhelmingly they are male. For providing citizen services with attributes like efficiency, user convenience, cost effectiveness etc. the Department of Panchayats and Rural Development takes initiatives to set up Common Service Centers (CSCs) in rural areas (popularly known as Tathya Mitra Kendra). In box 1 immediate feelings of women entrepreneurs of a CSC are captured.

Box 1 Benefits for women of a CSC in West Bengal Women entrepreneurs expressed that they gained more respect in their local area as a result of the ICT skills using a computer and accessing and distributing information to the local people as and when demanded. According to those women access to ICT represents real and symbolic access to modernity, the future education and knowledge. From the CSC they are providing data entry services to the gram panchayats as and when required, internet services to the local students etc. The engagement in the CSC enables them to earn around Rs.10000/- per month.

For facilitating women’s access to ICT, it is critical to ensuring that women can fully exploit the existing opportunities to learn computer in different learning centers sponsored by the Central and State Governments. Experience has shown that reaching women particularly in rural areas is facilitated by using multiple forms of media and communication technologies that is ensuring that new technologies, such as computers and internet are usually combined with already conversant media like radio, television and print media. The common scenario in use of computers installed for e-governance in the panchayat and block offices is that the panchayat members, not to talk of women members separately, are mostly excluded from the initiatives of the state government.

Capacity-building measures instituted by the state government in West Bengal for adoption of various e-governance initiatives have been undertaken in two modes – institutional training and handholding support to the end users at their work-places. In institutional training subjects coverage is like this: theoretical aspects of computer fundamentals, basic accounts keeping and operation of the soft wares, simulation and hands on practice regarding operation of the application soft wares. The duration of the training is five days at a stretch. Only the employees of the panchayat offices and blocks are selected for training; that too according to most of the trainees is not sufficient to capture vignettes of the soft wares. Even the heads of the village panchayats and block panchayats (both are elected representatives and have women in their fold) are not brought under the training.

ICTs can not overcome the social rigidities – they can only act as catalysts if used in proper perspectives. Socio-cultural forces like machismo and negative male attitudes towards women and stereotypes about women can not be combated with the ICTs. Personal, social, and environmental factors are very much concerning – literacy, infrastructure at the offices where the panchayat members are coming and working, government sponsorship etc. may be cited as examples of such factors. The assumption that technology introduced for the betterment of the society at large is gender-neutral and yield symmetric benefits for both men and women is not correct at all. The computers installed at the panchayat offices and the software used like Integrated Fund Monitoring and Accounting System is the example of such attitudes. The impact of gender relations on technology and social constraints women have to face in accessing and using ICTs can not be denied. So far the State Government has yet to take massive training programmes for making the panchayat members computer literate - in West Bengal there are around 52 thousand members in panchayats taking all three tiers together.

Like all human beings, women also want information and prefer to engage in communication (around 85 percent of women members in West Bengal have mobile phones) with the outer-world. Through focus group discussions with the selected heads of the panchayats, it transpires that the women as a whole do not get due recognition by the policy makers at the helm of affairs. The women representatives categorically indicated that “women are rarely involved in the need assessments of information required for development programmes – not to talk of ICTs separately.” Even the utility of possessing the relevant information remains grey to them.

Practically for all purposes, women are considered as the passive recipients of information and not as active users of information. In the meetings of the panchayats it is a common scenario that the women members rarely interact – that is they are not considered as communicators also. In decentralized governance, it is expected that all the partners should have the minimum capability to interact - that is each and everyone in the process shall participate equitably. The field reality is that in spite of at least one third of the total members in all three tiers of the panchayat structure women are not given equal weights at the time of exercising their options and ideas.

Well-considered view is that ICTs can build new channels for social awareness, mobilizing resources for resource poor women and networking with others for their promotion. Involving women’s organizations for propagating the usefulness of ICTs among women (women panchayat members are not outsiders of the whole community of rural women) is very rare. In reality, these organizations have no opportunity to play any role at all. Of the elected women members, there are women who have education beyond the secondary level of formal education – they can be used as change-agents in engendering ICTs available in the panchayat offices. Hand-holding supports from the available technical man-power at districts (in every district there is a National Informatic Centre) may be extended for building capacities for women members.

Enhancing the capabilities of women in ICTs and conversion of ICT based capabilities into actual functionings, call for addressing individual choices consisting of personal preference, specific needs, and social norms. If the women members are not coming forward and there is no compulsion from the government side, it is likely that they will remain excluded from the benefits of ICTs. In local governance mechanism (gram panchayats at villages, panchayat samitis at blocks and zilla parishads at districts) the people representatives have to depend heavily on government officials for data and fund management. Interpretations are also extended by the officials not always compatible with local people’s demand and aspirations. This contradiction in many cases disrupts the decentralized decision making process. The state government needs to create scope for ICT based training in training curriculum and to impart training on computers for all the panchayat members at three tiers. Computers are in panchayat offices but not used by the members – this scenario shall have to be changed for making any impact of the ICT technology. No discrimination in providing access to training is to be made at the time of selection of trainees – rather to start with women office bearers at three tier panchayats may be given the priority.

It is a fact that ICT is not a gender neutral technology; so every possibility of women exclusion from ICTs is there. In the current self help group approach to development and empowerment of women through micro-financing, intervention of ICTs is more or less absent. Barring a few exceptions in the state like Kerala (where female literacy rate is more than 90 percent), most of the SHGs are engaged in traditional activities. These groups are mainly engaged in primary and secondary sector activities involving low skill. The lack of basic skills due to the massive illiteracy prohibits these women from getting ICT benefits. Technological literacy and access to information and communication technology resources are very much important even for the informal sectors in the rural areas. Without this, the call for inclusive development may remain an empty slogan.

If in true sense it becomes possible to include women in ICTs at all levels starting from the villages, solidarity will emerge. There is a common prophecy that ‘if you don’t ask for gender, you don’t get gender.’ In introducing e-governance throughout the panchayats in West Bengal, no references to gender concerns, however, were made and no sex disaggregated data both at micro and macro level can be available. In the context of empowering women, it is essential that gender considerations need to enter from the beginning of the policy design not added in hindsight or as a mid-term correction. As the channeling of feedbacks and concerns from the field is poor, the policy-makers at far off places (either at the national capital or state capital) remain in dark about grassroots issues.

In lieu of a conclusion

In order to address the problem of the digital divide, proactive efforts on the part of the government agencies from the national and state levels to the local levels would have to be made to ensure women’s effective participation in the knowledge society. This inclusion is more than just access to ICTs or to the internet – task does not end in provisioning of infrastructure only. Rather, efforts shall be there to provide information literacy to women. Common belief is that digital divide is merely a divide in access to the ICT facilities. At the first stroke this belief needs correction. For bridging digital divide the first and foremost condition should be the attainment of a minimum standard of education for understanding ABC of computers.

There is no doubt that ICT technology has a force for change but the outcomes are constrained by the pre-existing organization of work, of which gender is an integral part. Barriers to effective use of ICTs are a microcosm of existing gender relations in societies where women are socialized towards non-technical careers and away from any technical work. This calls for a cultural change. Here also the government agencies have a positive role to encourage women to come in technical streams. Further, there is the predominant use of English in maintaining data and their digitization. Output obviously is always in English. The support of local languages and local content is a major issue to promote ICT use. If this is not cared adequately and appropriately any endeavour to empower women is bound to be fallen through. The Constitution of India recognizes equality of sexes; in practice the provisions contained in the Constitution are observed more in breach than in compliance.

References

1) Dighe, Anita and Vyasulu Reddi, Usha - Women’s literacy and Information and communication technologies: Lessons that experience has taught us, published by Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, 2006

2) Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India - Study on Elected Women Representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions, 2008

3) Planning Commission, Government of India - Eleventh Five Year Plan, volume I