Across large parts of India, governance reveals a pattern that is neither concealed nor formally acknowledged, yet persists with enough regularity to have acquired a name of its own.

Within panchayats or village councils - the third tier of India's democratic structure - the elected representative is a woman, her position constitutionally secured and her authority recorded in official proceedings; yet in meetings, administrative interactions, and decision-making, it is often a male relative who speaks, negotiates, and directs.

The law recognises one figure as the office-holder; governance, in practice, often proceeds through another.

This phenomenon, described as the “Pradhan Pati” or “Mukhiya Pati” practice (where husbands of women village heads do proxy governance for their wives), has long been explained as a distortion expected to recede as representation deepens.

What is increasingly difficult to ignore, however, is that the separation between office and authority is no longer confined to the panchayat level. Instances at higher levels of governance reflect a similar unease, where unelected individuals appear in official engagements that, in form, belong to the office-holder alone.

The defence remains predictable: no rule has been violated, no prohibition triggered, and the law does not regulate mere presence.

And yet, the question persists, not whether such presence is permissible, but whether the law has ensured that authority remains where it is formally placed.

Representation as Intended

The constitutional project of women’s reservation is neither symbolic nor incidental; it is a deliberate attempt to redistribute power through institutional design.

The 73rd and 74th Amendments embedded this commitment within the structure of local self-government, ensuring that women are not merely participants in democratic processes but office-holders within them. The scale of this intervention is substantial, with over 1.4 million women occupying elected positions in panchayats, making it one of the most expansive exercises in gender-based political reservation globally.

The Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023, extends this logic to legislative bodies, introducing provisions such as Article 330A, which states:

“330A. (1) Seats shall be reserved for women in the House of the People.

(2) As nearly as may be, one-third of the total number of seats reserved under clause (2) of article 330 shall be reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes.

(3) As nearly as may be, one-third (including the number of seats reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes) of the total number of seats to be filled by direct election to the House of the People shall be reserved for women.”

and Article 332A, which reads as:

“332A. (1) Seats shall be reserved for women in the Legislative Assembly of every State.

(2) As nearly as may be, one-third of the total number of seats reserved under clause (3) of article 332 shall be reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes.

(3) As nearly as may be, one-third (including the number of seats reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes) of the total number of seats to be filled by direct election in the Legislative Assembly of every State shall be reserved for women.”

The constitutional intention is clear; representation is not conceived as symbolic inclusion but as a means of redistributing authority.

Yet, this commitment carries a tension. Its operationalisation remains contingent upon census and delimitation, rendering representation constitutionally recognised but temporally deferred.

The Representation Gap

For any law student, this is precisely the kind of moment that demands a return to first principles.

Across one or several semesters, Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws is encountered not merely as political theory, but as a foundational text on how power behaves within legal systems. His warning, often repeated and rarely exhausted in its relevance, bears restating in full:

“Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. Is it not strange, though true, to say that virtue itself has a need for limits?

To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.”

The insight is structural. Power does not remain where the law places it unless it is actively contained.

A system may allocate authority with precision yet fail to ensure that its exercise aligns with that design. It is precisely this possibility that unsettles within the constitutional design of representation.

The law is meticulous in determining who holds office. It is far less capable of ensuring that the authority attached to that office is exercised by the individual who formally occupies it.

Representation as Practised

The persistence of the “pradhan pati” phenomenon demonstrates that the allocation of office does not automatically translate into the exercise of authority.

This is no longer a matter of anecdotal observation. It has been formally recognised in the Report of the Advisory Committee on Women Pradhans, Transforming Women’s Representation and Role in Panchayati Raj Institutions: Efforts to Eliminate Proxy Participation, which recorded that elected women representatives are often “represented by their husbands or male relatives” and recommended the imposition of stringent and exemplary penalties to curb such practices.

This confirms what has long been visible: proxy governance is neither incidental nor unseen, yet remains inadequately addressed.

It does not present as a clear legal violation, but operates through influence and socially sanctioned authority, spaces that the law does not easily reach. The seat is secure; the power it is meant to carry is not.

Its persistence, now extending beyond local governance, makes it harder to dismiss it as a transitional feature. Women are elected, seats are reserved, offices are occupied, and yet the exercise of power does not consistently follow.

This does not diminish the value of the reservation but reveals a limitation within representation itself. It can ensure presence; it cannot, on its own, ensure control.

The question of enforcement, therefore, becomes unavoidable. A constitutional guarantee of representation, without securing its exercise, risks reducing a substantive right to form. Ubi jus ibi remedium—where there is a right, there must be a remedy—but where enforcement falters, the right begins to thin.

Until that gap is addressed, power will not disappear; it will simply relocate.

(The author is a final-year law student at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar, India. The views expressed are personal. She can be contacted at axraje@gmail.com )