Are India’s Women Chief Ministers Any Different From Their Male Counterparts?

When Oxford-educated Atishi took charge as chief minister of Delhi a fortnight ago, she was hailed for being the country’s youngest chief minister. Expectations ran high as Atishi, the third woman to become Delhi’s chief minister, is a former educator, having played a pivotal role in revamping Delhi’s government-run schools.

However, such hopes were dashed soon after Atishi’s swearing-in when she declined to sit on the chief minister’s chair and announced that she preferred to keep it empty.

“This is Delhi’s Chief Minister’s chair, this chair is Arvind Kejriwal ji’s,” she declared.

Atishi was sworn into office after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Kejriwal resigned as chief minister on September 17. Delhi will vote in assembly elections in February 2025, and by resigning as chief minister, Kejriwal attempted to blunt the sting from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s attack on him for his alleged role in a corruption scandal.

With her statement that she would not occupy the chief minister’s chair, Atishi successfully passed a critical loyalty test, so vital for a long-term career in politics. She also made no bones of the fact that she was merely filling in for Kejriwal.

Atishi then went on to underscore her loyalty to her mentor and predecessor by drawing on the Hindu epic, the Ramayan. She dramatically said she would “work for four months as the chief minister of Delhi as Bharat did by keeping Ram’s ‘khadaun’ (footwear) on the throne.” In the Ramayan, King Bharat rules in the name of his elder brother, the ideal king Ram, whom devout Hindus worship as a deity.

Atishi’s political stunt sent shockwaves, especially among progressive sections who were elated that an educated woman was taking charge of governance in Delhi.

She has a double Master’s degree from Oxford University and is a Rhodes Scholar. A first-time legislator, she has worked earlier as an educational adviser in the Delhi government.

So when she chose to deny herself the stature of chief minister in deference to her male mentor and adopted the same populist tactics of drawing on majoritarian Hinduism to express her loyalty to him, it baffled many.

It’s not surprising that many are now questioning whether women chief ministers are any different from their male counterparts.

Those who have followed Atishi’s trajectory from her early days as an academic to a senior AAP minister say that her evolution into a typical “neta” or politician does not come as a surprise as she has adopted populist, even regressive positions previously as well.

Atishi was named “Atishi Marlena” by her parents, both professors, reflecting their admiration for Marx and Lenin. However, when she contested elections in 2019 and her BJP opponents attempted to politicize her name, she dropped “Marlena” and chose to go by the name “Atishi.”

Besides, like other AAP members, Atishi has repeatedly toed the party line when it has bordered on Hindutva and jingoism. In 2022, when northeast Delhi witnessed Hindu-Muslim communal clashes, Atishi then a senior minister in the Delhi government blamed “Rohingyas” and “Bangladeshis” for the violence. Both are vulnerable Muslim communities.

Again, when Kejriwal, as chief minister, drew flak from some quarters for demanding that Indian currency notes should have images of Hindu deities Lakshmi and Ganesh as it would improve the economy, Atishi flew to his defense.

In fact, Atishi is a mirror image of Kejriwal, whom she considers her “guru” (teacher). Like her, Kejriwal is well-educated, having graduated as an engineer from the esteemed Indian Institute of Technology.

So does donning the neta role rob women politicians of their own voice and independent thinking?

Delhi has had two women chief ministers before Atishi. The BJP’s Sushma Swaraj had a short chief ministerial stint of 52 days in 1998, and subsequently went on to become India’s Minister for External Affairs. The Congress’ Sheila Dikshit held the chief minister’s post for 15 years and indisputably transformed India’s capital city during her tenure.

At present, West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee is the only other woman chief minister in the country. Unlike Atishi, Banerjee, who has been chief minister since 2011, is an experienced career politician who has risen from the grassroots to be the chief minister of a state. She is credited for making it to the top post in Indian politics without the help of a male mentor or politician. Other successful and capable women chief ministers like three-time Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha and Uttar Pradesh’s Mayawati owe their rise to male mentors like M G Ramachandran and Kanshiram, respectively.

Banerjee was a rank outsider, who started with the Congress party in Bengal and then broke away to form her own political party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), and in 2011, she successfully ended the 34-year-long rule of the Communists in Bengal and came to power.

During her 13 years at the helm, she has faced stiff challenges from the Left parties as well as the BJP, which has managed to make inroads into the ‘secular’ bastion of Bengal. BJP is now the principal opposition in West Bengal.

Banerjee is known for her strong secular credentials and has often been attacked by the BJP for wooing the Muslims in Bengal. She has hit back saying that she respects all faiths and visits the mosque, church, gurudwara and temple. Banerjee is regarded as a gutsy woman chief minister.

Significantly, Banerjee has drawn on traditional gender roles to reach out to the masses. She has cultivated an image of being a caring elder sister or “didi” in Bengal. She has assiduously catered to her women’s vote bank with empowerment schemes like Kanyashree, and Lakshmi Bhandar. Ironically, it is this strong band of women supporters that Banerjee is now at risk of losing.

Following widespread outrage over the rape and murder of a woman doctor at the government-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, Banerjee has been facing flak for her failure to respond promptly and with sensitivity to the mass protests in the state.

While the opposition BJP has run a massive propaganda campaign against Banerjee since the protests erupted, Banerjee and her women MPs’ initial silence and paralysis have painted an image of her as presiding over a government that is insensitive on gender issues. Significantly, Banerjee’s party has the largest number (11) of women legislators in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament.

If Banerjee is to be judged she has to be assessed as an administrator who slackened her grip over the pulse of the people.

At the end of the day, long-term chief ministers, like Banerjee or Rajasthan’s two-term chief minister, Vasundhara Raje of the BJP, fail or succeed as able administrators and not as women who occupy the chief minister’s chair.

India has also seen chief ministers like Rabri Devi in Bihar, who was installed by her husband the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav as chief minister when he faced a jail term in the fodder scam. To him, Rabri Devi was a safe bet to safeguard the chief minister’s chair till he returned from jail. She was largely seen as his proxy and not the de facto head of the state.

While the Modi government has finally passed the Women Reservation bill in parliament to ensure greater representation of women and give them one–third quota seats in the 543-member Parliament, the challenges women face to make it to the top of government continue to be enormous. Women in politics continue to be a rarity. Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a notable exception as a powerful woman leader.

Significantly, once women politicians, educated or uneducated, succeed in making it to the top; they are faced with the choice of being a rubber stamp or taking independent decisions in governance. Clearly Atishi has chosen to do the former.