hot Chhavi Rajawat

IT is the first gram sabha (village council) meeting. The sarpanch baisa (village council headwoman), dressed in handprinted kurta and jeans, drives to the panchayat bhawan building, which is only half a kilometre from her home. Baisa is never late for a meeting. Today, she has brought a junior engineer with her to explain to the villagers that the 8 am-to-5 pm timings for NREGA work (under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) are mandatory as per the Act, and not a rule that she had made. NREGA guarantees 100 days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

Chhavi Rajawat has a clear development agenda that lays emphasis on providing water and power to residents of Soda village Photo: WFS

The villagers are surprised and happy with her effort to explain the scheme. This is because the people of Soda, 60 km from Jaipur, in Malpura tehsil of Tonk district in Rajasthan, had not been used to such transparency. Says Radha Krishna Gujjar: "We are happy baisa agreed to contest for the sarpanch election on our request. She is making us aware of our rights, and she is so transparent in her dealings."

The baisa he is referring to is 28-year-old Chhavi Rajawat. Rajawat is certainly not your quintessential sarpanch. In a conservative village setting, the young woman wears jeans, drives an SUV and rides horses. But that is not all. Rajawat is also highly educated — she has a degree in English (Honours) and an MBA in marketing. Looking at her profile, one would imagine her to be a high-powered corporate go-getter. And so she was for a while. After comfortable high-paying jobs, she decided to assist her mother, Harsh Chauhan, in running Kailrugji, a boutique hotel in Jaipur’s Gopalbari area. But that was only until the panchayat elections were announced in the state, and Soda — the village that is her parental home, and where she spent many happy childhood days — was declared reserved for a woman candidate.

Fed up of their corrupt sarpanch, the villagers thought no one was better suited for the job than their baisa, and they took it upon themselves to convince her. In fact, a busload arrived at her Jaipur house to speak to her. She stays on the top floor of Kailrugji, named after her grandmother Kailash, and grandfather Brigadier Raghubir Singh, who was fondly called Rugji by friends.

"They told me more people were waiting in the village to come to Jaipur to put more pressure on me if I refused. They said there are 18-19 women wanting to contest, and that the village was on the verge of getting divided along caste lines. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but I didn’t want to disappoint them," says Rajawat.

The villagers told her that there had not been any development in the village since her grandfather, Brigadier Singh, had retired as sarpanch. Singh became village head soon after he retired from the Army and remained sarpanch for three consecutive terms — for 15 years. "Before I took the decision, I consulted him about what was involved. I wanted to understand for myself the local self-government system, and how it functions. Once I decided to contest, there were only two other women left in the fray. Most women withdrew from the contest. That, obviously, was a happy sign but also a sign of the kind of expectations people have from me," she adds.

Elections were held on February 4, 2010, and she was declared the winner the same evening. The swearing-in ceremony took place the next day. Brigadier Singh, who now mostly doesn’t move out of their farmhouse in Jaipur, accompanied her to the village and was present during the ceremony. "People call her the daughter of the village, and they thanked me for convincing her to return to her roots," says the proud grandfather. Incidentally, Rajawat’s great grandfather, Ranjit Singh, who was a Colonel in the Jaipur state army, was the first sarpanch in post-Independent India.

How did her family react to her decision, which many acquaintances thought was a step backwards? "Even though she is our only child, we left it entirely to her," says Rajawat’s father, Narendra Singh. "Ours has been a family of Army officers. I was the only civilian in my generation, but all our children in Chhavi’s generation are doing their own thing. Her uncle’s son is a golf trainer, and my sister’s son is an international fitness trainer in Jordan, while her daughter is an educationist managing 16 schools in Karachi. So it wasn’t difficult for us to accept things when Rajawat announced her decision."

For six years, she worked in the hospitality and IT sectors in various positions — whether it was with Radisson Hotel or Airtel. Then she decided to quit the corporate sector and assist her mother. Rajawat also runs E-quest — a riding academy on her farmhouse in Jaipur — along with her business partner, who has been part of the Indian equestrian team for nine years, and two trainers.

A sarpanch and an entrepreneur, how does Rajawat manage to multi-task in this manner? "It is not difficult. The hotel is managed on phone and Internet. For the riding academy, there are trainers and my business partner. So I am focussing all my energy on the village," she elaborates.

Rajawat says she already has a clear development agenda that lays emphasis on attending to the immediate concerns of the people — providing water, power, as well as building proper roads in Soda.

For now Rajawat’s energy levels are high and the local people are backing her wholeheartedly. But these are early days yet. There is a long, dusty road ahead for this sarpanch baisa.

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