Women getting the right to vote in America has been considered as more important than manufacture of atom bomb, establishment of United Nations and many other great scientific discoveries. I can say with great confidence that if such is the importance of women getting right to vote then their full participation in political and economic fields will become the most far reaching and important event in the history of mankind. It has empowered the marginalised women and brought about significant social changes. The drive for literacy and anti-liquor movements in many parts of the country has got an impetus from women's participation in Panchayati Raj bodies. Such political empowerment has encouraged women to move from one village to another to spread literacy with a catchy slogan 'Jai Akshar' which they say is equal in importance to 'Jai Hind'.
Women are now restless to widen their public participation.
It will in fact fulfil one of the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi who had gone to the extent of saying in 1946 that women should be preferred to men even if such preference resulted in total displacement of men by women. Substantive portion of women's empowerment rests on the economic independence of women. Women have least access to credit, property, and economic and productive resources. We have seen how the activities of ordinary women in many parts of the country led to their economic empowerment. These credit cooperatives started by women have been replicated in many other parts of Andhra Pradesh and many other States of India.