Women sarpanches need psychological training: Study

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, February 7

A study conducted on women sarpanches by a research scholar indicates that despite having attained empowerment in legal terms, the women representatives are still to achieve the social status equivalent to their male counterparts in villages of the state.

The study, conducted by a student of applied psychology at the Guru Jambheshwar University of Sciences and Technology (GJUST), concluded that social empowerment could be achieved through psychological empowerment of elected representatives, which required organising special training programmes for them.

Nearly 41 per cent of villages have elected women as their sarpanches in the state this time.

Gurpreet Kaur, a PhD scholar, has interviewed nearly 300 women sarpanches for her thesis on ‘psychological well-being of elected women representatives in relation to role conflict, social support and psychological capital’ in Hisar, Rohtak, Bhiwani, Faridabad, Sirsa, Kurukshetra and Ambala districts.

These women belonged to different strata of society comprising illiterate, semi-literate and educated background.

Sharing specific issues touched upon in the interview, Dr Sandeep Singh, head of the department of applied psychology, said, “These women have high aspirations and want to implement their own vision. When a woman gets social support and freedom, she shows greater efficiency and performance. If provided proper training and given opportunities, it will lead to their psychological well-being.”

A meeting of newly elected sarpanches called by the police recently, too, underlined the need for training these women to make them self-reliant. However, only 13 of the 33 women sarpanches attended the meeting.

Recalling his visit to a village in Hansi tehsil, Ashwin Shenvi, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), said he had called a meeting of the women sarpanches, in which no one turned up. Instead, their husbands/fathers came, who said women were not allowed to enter the ‘chaupal’, the venue of the meeting, he said.