What We’re Hearing from Women in Rural Karnataka

In the villages of Karnataka, women turn up at polling booths in large numbers. 97% of the women we surveyed in Kolar district said they vote in every election. Democracy, at least in its most visible form, is not missing them. But once the votes are counted, a quieter story unfolds. Only one in four women has ever attended a Gram Sabha, and nearly two-thirds don’t know what a Gram Sabha is. Most cannot name a single Panchayat member.

One woman from Malur said simply, “I vote every time, but I don’t know who wins or what they do.”

This isn’t apathy. It’s a sign that women’s relationship with democracy has been framed too narrowly — as participation through the ballot, not presence in decision-making. In 2024, we conducted a baseline study across five taluks in Kolar district — Bangarapet, KGF, Kolar, Malur, and Srinivaspura — to understand how rural women engage with local governance on their own terms. What emerged was not disengagement but a quiet readiness waiting for recognition.

When asked what “rights and duties” meant to them, most women described them as moral values — respect, honesty, responsibility — rather than as tangible entitlements that could be claimed through civic processes. Only 7% had ever applied for a government scheme on their own; the rest depended on others — husbands, officials, or local camps — to navigate what should be their own civic pathways. Among those who did apply, fewer than half, 45%, received benefits. Even so, 62% said they believed they could help solve local problems. Their ideas were simple and collective: gather people, talk to the Panchayat, go as a group, file an application.

These are not signs of indifference, but of readiness constrained by structure. They point to the gap between what women are willing to do and what the system makes space for. Women’s priorities are consistent and practical: better drainage (50%), improved health facilities (31%), and access to water (29%). Yet only 0.25% reported receiving information directly from their Panchayat. Governance exists around them but rarely reaches them.

Through our Community Participation Program, we are learning what happens when women begin to see civic engagement not as something outside their lives but as a natural extension of it. The shift is quiet but visible — a question asked at a Gram Sabha, a form filled independently, a small group walking together to the Panchayat office. Each act widens the field of participation and subtly rewrites who belongs in the story of governance.

In many ways, the story from Kolar mirrors the story of rural India itself — women who are politically present but civically unseen. The question is no longer whether they are ready. They are. The work ahead is to ensure that readiness is recognized — by systems, by communities, and by the women themselves. Because when recognition meets readiness, governance begins to sound a lot more like the lives it’s meant to serve.