At this critical time, Vangadhra village in Vinchhiya Taluka of Rajkot district is in the hands of a fierce and young leader. Shobhnaben, the 30 year old Sarpanch, has left no stone unturned to enforce all the measures of safety as dictated by the government. From directing the Panchayat to take cognisance of instructions, orders and legal matters to setting up a team of youth volunteers for the leg work, she has been instrumental in developing a sense of community and ownership amongst people in her first term at this position.

Some of the measures taken by her include sanitization of the entire village at regular intervals and also large scale dissemination of information about basic preventive measures and practices such as washing hands, wearing of masks etc which need to be exercised at an individual level. She also facilitated smooth and timely distribution of ration amongst the needy. Youth volunteers, with the help of community leaders and Gram Panchayat members, led the initiative of identifying the ones in need and then the distribution of ration, making it a community effort. Mechanisms are put in place to monitor the strict enforcing of all the rules – such as manning of the main roads of the village by youth volunteers to ensure adherence to self-quarantining. One important provision was making health- check-ups available and mandatory for people who have returned to the village from outside.

Although these measures were announced centrally, ensuring adherence to these within their own regions has been a challenge for local governance; a challenge this young Sarpanch approached with complete sincerity and utmost efficiency.

 

Rise of Women Leaders

Leadership is tricky business – it’s hard, it’s confusing and it’s stressful at regular times but more so in the current scenario when we are forced to adapt to a blinding situation and shift gears continuously based on constantly changing demands. With this level of uncertainty, leaders find themselves stretched to manage the energies of individuals and keep the morale high. The unique policy-experiment in 1993 which mandated reserved seats for women in the Panchayat started out with women as dummy representatives to fill the seats, working under the thumb of their male counterparts. Slowly, though, women’s participation in rural governance is strengthening and becoming more and more real. Women leaders rising to the occasion in times like this, speaks volumes about their changing role and position in governance.