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A day before Haryana goes to vote, Dera Sacha Sauda chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment on two charges of rape, was released on his 11th parole in seven years. It is speculated that his release will influence the way in which large swathes of his followers, including women, will vote in these elections — something which the incumbent Haryana government certainly must have calculated. On the other end of the spectrum are strong female candidates including Olympian Vinesh Phogat who is waging a battle against the Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhusan Sharan Singh on charges of sexual harassment; Rabia Kidwai, the first woman to stand for elections from the Muslim-dominated Nuh constituency; and Savitri Jindal, chairperson of the O P Jindal Group and one of Asia’s richest women, fighting as an independent candidate from Hisar. While the presence of candidates and campaigners with a history of violence against women is not unique to this election, it is one which is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, especially with candidates like Phogat in the fray. Across India, participation of women in electoral politics has been on the rise for almost two decades. In a historical first, in the 2019 general elections the percentage of women voters was marginally above the male voters. So, in an election where almost all political parties have attempted to reach out to a broad umbrella category of the “women voters”, Singh’s parole warrants a discussion on what we understand about women in electoral politics, their demands and the terms of their participation. In the specific context of the Haryana polls, it would be pertinent to ask: Where do women stand vis-à-vis the de facto slogan of the Haryana elections – kisan, jawan, pehelwan? First, one needs to develop a gendered understanding of the three categories – kisan, jawan, and pehelwan. The women wrestlers’ protest against sexual harassment squarely placed the female body in a position of power and prominence in an otherwise masculinised public sphere. Apart from the strong, unyielding demands for the resignation of the perpetrators, it was the corporeal nature of the protest that allowed women to own the traditionally masculine pehelwan identity. Given the deep presence of a sporting culture and aspirational demands of young women to partake in sports, which ironically exists alongside patriarchal control over women’s bodies and movements, the female wrestlers’ public and political assertion is bound to have some congealing effect on women voters in Haryana. However, as we know, sexual harassment has not been able to consolidate women across identitarian lines. While women turned up in huge numbers to support the female pehelwans, women devotees have also never abandoned convicted offenders like Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. Intersectionality — the idea that women do not just represent their gender identity but that their gender is intersected by other, often competing, identities — complicates how we think of women voters as a category. The intersection of gender with other identities such as caste, class, religion, sexuality, disability and race has often produced extremely difficult, yet productive moments for politics. The anti-farm law protests witnessed large participation by women farmers who belied the notion that women are simply dependents on farmland. The “farmer” has often been regarded as a male identity, with women thought of as providing assisting labour. It has been extensively written about how women are not just active farmers but also wage legal and familial battles for share in land ownership. Further, women farmers are disproportionately affected by any pitfalls of agrarian policies. In the run-up to the elections, several women have spoken to media organisations about the challenges of farming, especially as sole earners. The anti-farm laws protests, therefore have found resonance across many sections of women voters. However, the anti-farm laws protests were dominated by Jat farmers, who also control the majority of the land in Haryana. It therefore needs to be interrogated how Dalit women, who have long been denied land ownership and who continue to labour on other’s fields, would vote on the kisan issue.

A day before Haryana goes to vote, Dera Sacha Sauda chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who has been sentenced to