Ironically - and lawmakers could look into it - the death of Navi Mumbai corporator Meena More on Sunday proves that political empowerment cannot prevent an elected representative from being doused in kerosene and burnt like any other garden variety wife or daughter-in-law. The fact that it happened when she had turned her back on her perpetrators and thought it was water being thrown on her, only underlines her attackers' defiance of her political position. For them she continued to be just a kaamwali who lived in the basti, and was unable to deliver the goods - in this case, a water tap at Chinchpada, in Airoli, Navi Mumbai.

``She said she was alone and going to make a call when these four men called her,'' recalls Stree Adhar Kendra's Neelam Gorhe, who met the dyingcorporator in hospital. ``After the altercation that followed, she turned her back to walk away and thought they had splashed water over her. The next minute she was set on fire.'' Clearly, it was cold blooded murder pre-planned to the extent that the men were sure they would not be caught. To escape the flames, More jumped into a nearby ditch. So much for being an elected representative.

Even if an investigation reveals a deeper conspiracy, the question remains: Would the men have set a male corporator on fire over such a petty matter? ``A male corporator would have been shot,'' says a nonchalant, Budhaji Bhoir, Standing Committee chairperson of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, (NMMC) and a Shiv Sainik. With public impatience on a rising curve on corporators' inability to give them their `water-meter-gutter' amenities, Shashikant Birajdar, a Nagri Aghadi corporator, admits that anybody could be beaten up or killed today. ``It is easy to beat up any corporator nowadays, never mind a woman,'' hesays.

But it is easier when the target is a woman. As Gorhe points out, unlike male corporators, women corporators do not roam around with a group of ``hangers-on''. ``It has much more to do with money, than with the fact that male corporators like to project their popularity,'' she observes, adding that financial resources are not easy for women corporators to come by.

If Meena More's rivals burnt her, her colleagues deserted her as the tragedy brought her no support - a male Congress corporator, who is a member of the Standing Committee, spread the `suicide' rumour even as More was battling for life.

There was no support within the corporation either. In the NMMC General Body, despite the Nagri Aghadi being in the majority, Mayor Vijaya Mhatre, refused to allow any discussion on the subject and adjourned the House. Worse, in a move that does nothing for the cause of women's empowerment, Mhatre walked over three Shiv Sena corporators who lay at the door to prevent the mayor from leaving thehall.

Criticism of the mayor's action `despite being a woman' is quick. However, Mhatre is an example of a woman corporator reaching the heights of local self-governance by virtue of her birth. Filling a post reserved for a woman from another backward caste category, Mhatre was also helped along by the political patronage of Ganesh Naik, former Sainik who launched his own party - Shiv Shakti which leads the NMMC. Known more as an obedient pupil than a master, Mhatre displays ignorance about the women's reservation issue. In her cabin, male corporators work out the forthcoming General Body meeting which she will chair and decide who will move the adjournment motion. Birajdar, despite being part of the system, however knows the attributes of a successful woman corporator. ``A woman will have to be gutsy if she has to be a corporator. She should have the guts to beat up the opponent if the need arises,'' he says , giving an eyewitness account of a male corporator propositioning a woman colleague, in the NMMC!In short, a woman corporator should be able to work using the male idiom. ``One should know how to take these officers to task,'' says Bhoir and describes how he uses his chair and his power to force officials to attend to his priorities. Apparantly, administrative laxity led to the delay on the installation of the water tap, which Birajdar says More had been trying to achieve since the last three years. When rivals in the slum obtained another tap on their own and used it to jeer at her ineffectiveness, an argument might have ensued - with disastrous consequences.

Sudha Mohan, lecturer on urban studies at the University of Bombay, believes it reflects a lack of civic understanding especially among the public. Yet, an amazingly large number of people have fewer expectations from a corporator, she says. ``Many believe it is only the local MLA who can help,'' she observes and pins this down on the state government which has till date treated local bodies with the same disdain that the Centre treats the stategovernments.

Discussing the Meena More incident, she feels these ramifications are an inevitable consequence of change in society. ``We cannot change the people's mindset, but women corporators as a constituency will find greater acceptability,'' she hopes.

Dr Marina Pinto, professor in public administration at the university, however, feels public bodies have a greater role to play in earning corporators their respectability.``So long as the image of the corporation is low in public esteem, corporators in these bodies will continue to suffer from a low public image,'' she says.