• Dr. Radhamani. K.

People in every society have been subjected to social exploitation and oppression perhaps because of conventions and practices prevalent in that society. There is a limit to tolerate this kind of social exploitation. Overtime if an individual or a group or an organization gains the ability to fight exploitation and oppression and to become free from exploitation, such ability is regarded as social empowerment. An individual may try to acquire development status by getting liberated from caste based, sex based, status based and such other societal conventional exploitation. All these kinds of empowerment namely, economic, political and social combined together may be viewed as total empowerment. Women’s contribution to economic development is immense both in visible and invisible form. From being primarily a vehicle of human reproduction, to a vehicle of social, cultural and economic good, she can create wonders. Women constitute almost 50% of the India’s population, their number was 586.5 million as per 2011census report. To be more precise, women represent 48.5 % of India’s population. Despite this, the fact is that they have been most abused and have undergone with various types of hardships in their day to day life. Women or community require representation in government bodies with a view to safeguarding and protecting the interest of members of the group or community. Representation is extended to people through the mechanism of election. Representation in a democratic set up is seen as synonymous to empowerment. All the democratic governments in the world have recognized the importance of peoples’ participation for the success of democracy. As a result, appropriate provisions have been made in their constitutions to provide the right to representation in all the levels of governance. This belief culminated in the creation of the concept of modem welfare state wherein the formulation and implementation of democratic principles has received top most priority. Representation as a political concept acquires special importance in a democratic system more than in any other forms of government.

Women, Exploitation, Political participation, Election, Representation, Democracy.

"A study on the role of Panchayat Raj Institutions in Women Empowerment", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 3, page no.461-466, March-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1903P56.pdf

"A study on the role of Panchayat Raj Institutions in Women Empowerment", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 3, page no. pp461-466, March-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1903P56.pdf