Parveen Kaur, a 25-year-old woman in Haryana has
become an inspiration for many who want to do some good for the society. She is
an engineer, a Sarpanch, and is a godsend in the lives of the people living in
a remote village in Haryana
Haryana’s Chief
Minister Manohar Lal Khattar tweeted in praise of the youngest woman Sarpanch of
the state saying that the daughters of Haryana have incredible strength,
determination and passion to achieve their goals through their voice and
actions.
“My tenure as
a sarpanch will come to end in January 2021, but I believe that my
biggest achievement during these five years is that I was able to inspire the
girls of my village to come out and do something worthwhile. Today, many girls
are thinking about becoming sarpanch,”said Parveen Kaur.
As Sarpanch,
Parveen Kaur set up CCTV cameras for women’s security, water coolers, solar lights
and a library in the Panchayat Ghar for children up to Class 8. Her work has
been honoured by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Women’s
Day in 2017, and the Haryana government has has also felicitated her on several occasions.
Ahead of the
January 2016 Panchayat elections, the Haryana government had set basic
educational qualifications for candidates. Women from the general category were
required to have passed Class 8, while for Scheduled Caste Women, the bar was
set at Class 5. In the case of men, these qualification criteria were fixed at
Class 10 (general) and 8 (SC) respectively. The state government’s decision
was opposed at several levels. However, for Parveen Kaur this
decision turned out to be favorable.
“My dream
was to become an engineer, so I had taken admission in Kurukshetra University.
In the last five years, I have studied five days a week and dedicated the
remaining two days for the village,” she said. The village has around 1,200
voters.“The post
of Sarpanch in my village for this term was reserved for a female.
There was no other educated female candidate in the entire village, so the
villagers unanimously elected me without any contest. My family and I had
shifted to the city for study, but still there was a close connection with the
village and I worked with full dedication,”
She gives credit
to her father as well as the villagers, saying, “Of course my father and others
helped a lot. I did not want to drop out from university, and it was thanks to
active support from everyone that I was able to do some good work.”In 2016, 2565 women were elected as sarpanches across
Haryana. However, despite a reservation of 50 per cent seats for women in
panchayats, many of the elected women are confined to the role of dummy
candidate. They are unable to even attend the block-level meetings. Important
decisions related to the village are often taken by their father-in-law,
husband or brother-in-law.
Parveen Kaur believes
the reservation for women in the panchayat system has helped, although it will
take time for women to really come into their own. At present, Parveen is
pursuing a web designing course from Chandigarh and wants to take up a job. Parveen Kaur
https://www.sikhnet.com/news/21-parveen-kaur-became-haryana%E2%80%99s-youngest-sarpanch-set-cctv-cameras-kids%E2%80%99-libraryhttps://www.facebook.com/parveenkaurguhla
Dr. Gurdeep Kaur
Associate Professor
Sri Guru Nanak Dev Khalsa College
University of Delhi
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