No woman from remote hill tribe is ‘8 pass', ST panchayat seat goes vacant
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Pithoragarh: Delayed by almost a year, the panchayat elections in Uttarakhand will finally get underway in two weeks. But in Khetar Kanyal — a gram sabha of three Van Rawat-majority villages in the middle Himalayan belt — the seat of gram pradhan, reserved for a Scheduled Tribe woman, is almost certain to remain vacant.
Not a single Van Rawat woman has passed Class 8, the minimum qualification required by law to contest.
The Van Rawats, notified as one of India's 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), number 227 of the 1,095 residents in the sabha. Though the reservation was designed to ensure political representation for tribal women, it has instead highlighted the structural obstacles that begin with education — and often end there.
Among the 117 Van Rawat women, not one has studied beyond primary school.
Khetar Kanyal includes the hamlets of Kuta, Madanpuri and Churani, served by a single primary school. The nearest upper primary facility is 3km away from Kuta, and 6km from the other two. In places without public transport, and where families depend on daily wage labour and forest produce, girls are often pulled out of school early.
"These girls are married off before they turn 21.
Even daughters-in-law from other villages haven't cleared Class 8," said Kheema Jethi, a social worker who has long worked with Van Rawat households. "A baseline survey found not a single woman in these hamlets who had studied beyond primary school."
"If no eligible woman steps forward, the seat will remain vacant for six months and we'll submit a report to the state election commission," said Chandra Sekhar Lohani, block development officer, Didihat.
The rules also require candidates to be at least 21 years old and listed on the local electoral roll — a combination that has disqualified the entire eligible female population in the sabha.
Still, there are signs of change. In 2023, Manisha Rajwar became the first Van Rawat woman in Uttarakhand to graduate with a BSc in nursing. Educated at a residential school in Dehradun, she now lives in Champawat and is preparing for a public sector job. She also voted for the first time in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Though she meets the age and educational criteria, she cannot contest in Khetar Kanyal — she is not a resident of the gram sabha and is not listed on its voter roll.
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