If a picture is worth a thousand words, two photographs on a poster in the recently concluded Punjab Assembly elections have made a quiet statement about a reversal of gender roles.
The campaign posters of the CPIML-Liberation in Punjab’s Firozpur Rural constituency had photos of a couple, but with a difference.
Although it is common in many parts of India for the photograph of the husband or the father to be included alongside that of a woman candidate, in Firozpur Rural, the image of Paramjit Kaur appeared beside the photo of the candidate, her husband Suresh Kumar. Both photos were of the same size.
Kumar is a ticket checker in a private bus company and Kaur a trade unionist. Both have been activists for more than a decade and Kaur has led an agitation in the district against usurious micro-finance companies that mainly target Dalit women.
Kumar is a Mazhabhi Dalit and Kaur a Jat Sikh, hence he is contesting from this seat reserved for Scheduled Castes. Usually in India, it is men who field their wives as candidates if the husband cannot contest a seat for some legal or electoral reason.
Kaur told The Telegraph recently: “I am a known face here, so the party felt it will be better if my face is on the posters along with his (Kumar’s). We got party membership two years ago and he told me to do what I like and that he would stand with me.”
Paramjit Kaur (white sweater) and Suresh Kumar (grey sweater) campaigning in Ferozepur Rural last week. The Telegraph
Firozpur Rural is also the district where protesting farmers had stopped Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy in January.
“Election or not, we are always in the struggle here. We matter to those we fight for,” Kaur said.
She added: “After our marriage in 2004, we went to Singapore to avoid the tension over our inter-caste marriage. I was a maid there. When we came back, we both got involved in activism.”
Kaur added: “Initially, I was drawn to the women’s movement here and whenever the party wanted someone to lead, I would volunteer. Once the Mazdoor Mukti Morcha (the agri-worker wing of the CPIML-Liberation) struggle started (against the micro-finance companies) in 2010, I got involved in it as it has badly hit families here. I went on to become district president (of the Morcha).”
With interest rates of more than 35 per cent pushing women into permanent debt, the Morcha laid siege to the offices of several micro-finance companies last year. As soon as Dalit leader Charanjit Singh Channi became chief minister in September 2021, many Dalit and communist groups demanded that the government waive these loans, but the administration only announced a waiver covering banks and not the micro-finance firms.
Kaur and Kumar are from the town of Mudki, known for the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845.
Punjab’s voter turnout on Sunday was 71.95 per cent, the state’s lowest since 2007. Firozpur Rural saw a higher turnout at 77.22 per cent but this was still lower than the 2017 figure of 84.5 per cent.
The Congress expelled its outgoing MLA Satkar Kaur a day before polling for allegedly trying to sabotage the campaign of party candidate Ashu Banger who defected from AAP after being declared their candidate.
The AAP camp witnessed a tight contest for the ticket, which finally went to Rajneesh Dahiya. Both Dahiya and Banger wear Sikh turbans despite being Hindus.
