National

Now, The Better Third

How exactly will the Women’s Reservation Bill empower our women and affect our legislative complexion?

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Now, The Better Third
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Highlights

  • The Constitution (108th amendment) Bill, 2008, reserves one-third of Lok Sabha and state assembly seats for women
  • One-third of SC/ST seats to be reserved for women of those groups
  • Reservation for women shall cease 15 years after the act is in place
  • Reserved seats may be allotted by Parliament on rotation to different constituencies
  • Each Lok Sabha and assembly seat will be reserved for women once in a block of three elections. Amethi, therefore, cannot have Rahul Gandhi as its MP for three consecutive terms.
  • One of the two LS seats for Anglo-Indians will be reserved for a woman of that community for the first two terms in a block of three elections.

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In the violent and rancorous opposition to the Women’s Reservation Bill lies the answer to the question on how women will change politics. For, this resistance springs not merely from the fact that many male legislators will lose their seats in Parliament and the state assemblies, nor from the fact that the rotation of seats every five years will ensure that MPs may no longer ‘nurture’ their constituencies. The real battle is for political power: for, if the Constitution (108th) Amendment Bill does become law and at least 181 women sit in the Lok Sabha and corresponding numbers in state assemblies across the country, it will result in a fundamental change in the power dynamics in an arena where it matters the most—decision-making in the highest echelons of the country.

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Not just that, while women will be able to contest in any seat, reserved or unreserved, men will be restricted in any given Lok Sabha or assembly to trying their luck in only two-thirds of the seats. Over time, women will cross the 33 per cent mark, with some women opting to contest from general seats that they had won in the past. Besides experienced women politicians such as Congress president Sonia Gandhi or leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, who have the stature to win from general seats, even women who would have notched up a victory in a reserved seat may well try their luck from the same seat when it falls into the general pool. Look no further than Karnataka, the first state to have introduced reservation for women in the panchayats. Women’s representation here has risen from the initial 33 per cent to well over 40 per cent. In fact, the rotation of seats is a positive, contrary to all the arguments currently being aired for, at the end of 15 years—the length for which this bill is being enacted—every constituency will have been represented by a woman once: in short, there will be a lateral spread of women in politics across the country, as the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, stressed in his speech. Some seasoned women political players are all for rotation. “This uprooting,” says senior CPI(M) leader and former Lok Sabha MP Subhashini Ali, “may, in fact, force political parties to become more responsive and discourage personal fiefdoms.”

The question then is: what will women do with this power? Will they bring in a certain measure of discipline and more responsible parliamentary conduct to the legislatures? Will their concerns be different? Will they become male clones, as some powerful women such as Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher did, or will the larger numbers help them treat power differently?

For Ladies Only

A look at the role women play in our polity and how reservation will change it

Lady Bigwigs unlikely to contest from a reserved seat

  • Sonia Gandhi
  • Sushma Swaraj
  • Kanimozhi
  • Mayawati
  • Supriya Sule
  • Priya Dutt
  • Jayalalitha
  • Mamata Banerjee
  • Maneka Gandhi
  • Girija Vyas
  • Selja Kumari
  • Meira Kumar
  • Mehbooba Mufti
  • Agatha Sangma

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Total Lok Sabha seats 545*

  • Seats reserved for SCs/STs: 122
  • Seats to be reserved for women: 181
  • Unreserved: 240

* Includes two seats for nominated Anglo-Indians

Women members in the last five Lok Sabhas

  • 11th Lok Sabha 40
  • 12th Lok Sabha 44
  • 13th Lok Sabha 49
  • 14th Lok Sabha 45
  • 15th Lok Sabha 59

Our women’s representation is worse than our neighbours’

  • Nepal 33%
  • Afghanistan 27%
  • Pakistan 22%
  • Bangladesh 19%
  • India 11%

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Several of India's earliest women MPs, including Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur, opposed any
reservation for women in Parliament. Renuka Ray, a member of the Constituent Assembly, opposed reservation for women saying it was an “impediment to our growth and an insult to our very intelligence and capacity”.

“For me, the most important aspect of all this is that the lens through which the world is viewed and policies crafted will now be a wide-angled one, giving you 50 per cent more perspective,” says Chandra Iyengar, additional chief secretary (home), Maharashtra, who drafted a Policy for Women in the state in the early ’90s, a policy that would bring about far-reaching changes in the status of women across Maharashtra.

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Meenakshi Natarajan, first-time MP and Congress secretary attached to the party’s heir apparent Rahul Gandhi, is quick to point out that a Women’s Reservation Act will also shake up the chauvinistic political system. This young woman from a modest middle-class background should know; she is one of the few women MPs who has come up the hard way, through student politics, and without the backing of a political family. “More women in politics,” she told Outlook, “will bring a new culture and discipline into politics which, in turn, will encourage greater participation by women.” She also believes, as most people do, that the presence of more women will ensure a greater sensitivity to women’s issues—equal wages, health, nutrition and education for women and the girl child. Equally interesting is her observation that more women come to her meetings than those addressed by her male colleagues: “Women relate to me better and I can understand their issues better.”

Of course, even the staunchest supporters of the bill are not claiming that it will be a panacea for all evils, and wonder why they should be judged by higher standards than men. “Why should women be expected to have magic wands?” asks Rajya Sabha MP and CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat. What is important, she says, is that the bill, if enacted, will “address the blatant reality of discrimination against women as far as getting into elected positions is concerned, while changing the cultural stereotyping of women merely as homemakers”.

Younger women MPs, like the NCP’s Supriya Sule, resent another type of stereotyping. “Of course, women will be more sensitive to gender issues, but to think that that is all they are interested in is to stereotype them. Look at Sushmaji—she speaks on a range of issues. This is about power. And being part of the decision-making process.”

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Interestingly, even those political parties that have opposed the bill are at pains to stress that they are not opposed to reservation for women. RJD supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav, looking somewhat chastened after the UPA succeeded in ramming the bill through the Rajya Sabha, told Outlook: “I am not opposed to reservation for women—I only want the most disadvantaged to have precedence. Which is why I not only want sub-quotas, I also want the creamy layer principle applied.” So what really prevents him from giving all the reserved tickets to SC, OBC and Muslim women? “Maybe I can,” he says, “but what about the Congress and the BJP?”

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Brinda has a counter to that. She points out that the number of OBCs, SCs and STs in the UP and Bihar assemblies together account for around 60 per cent. “Post-Mandal politics broke, in a welcome way, upper-caste monopoly which kept the oppressed castes out of decision-making,” she says. “Reservation for women won’t change that caste composition. The OBCs will remain the largest grouping, only the gender composition will change. Those who speak in the name of the oppressed castes never take up cudgels on behalf of the women of those castes.” Indeed, in the current UP assembly, of the 28 women MLAs, 10 or almost a third are OBCs. And as Arun Jaitley stresses, “Every constituency has a social character. Political parties will not commit harakiri. The candidate will have to mirror the social character of the constituency.”

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Anyway, a sub-quota for OBC women will have to be preceded by a quota for OBCs, constitutionally. This is something this cluster of communities doesn’t want: they already hold over 30 per cent of the seats and a 27 per cent quota might just boomerang on them, placing a cap on their numbers.

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Opposing Yadavs Mulayam-Laloo oppose women’s reservation

As for SC/ST women, they will get a third of the seats reserved for SC/STs—from their current 16 in the present Lok Sabha, SC/ST women will be guaranteed at least 42 seats once the bill comes into force. The reason why the RJD, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party are still demanding a sub-quota for SC/ST women is simple, and no different from that which prevails in any other party—they do not want to share the current SC/ST quota with the women of these communities.

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However, the third part of their grievance—that this is discriminatory against Muslim women—does have substance. But is this just a gender question, or a wider one, of the great need, as the Sachar report pointed out, for greater electoral representation for the Muslims, who are just an abysmal 4.23 per cent of the 15th Lok Sabha? As Subhashini points out, though this issue needs to be addressed urgently, “it can’t be resolved within the parameters of the Women’s Reservation Bill”. Creative solutions will have to be found as the Constitution does not permit reservation on religious grounds, and the question of communal electorates raises the spectre of the divisions of pre-Partition India.

Interestingly, even women in the socialist ranks are highly critical of the stand taken by their male colleagues, even if it is ostensibly “pro-women”. Says Ranjana Kumari, head of the Centre for Social Research, and a socialist by training, “These so-called socialist leaders are a disgrace to the man they revere, Ram Manohar Lohia, who always maintained that the emancipation of women was the foundation of social revolution.” The other critique is even more powerful—and embarrassing—for the Lohiaites, as it comes from one of them, Bihar’s Nitish Kumar, who was the first to give 50 per cent reservation for women in the panchayats in his state. The churning in the state’s patriarchal set-up created a brand new constituency for him, leading him to reverse his position on the Women’s Reservation Bill: he freed his MPs from any whip and his partymen in the Rajya Sabha all voted for the bill on March 9.

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A Few Good Questions

What’s next for the bill?

It will now have to be passed by the Lok Sabha. There's no deadline for that but once that happens, it will be enacted into law. There is some confusion about whether half of the state assemblies have to ratify the bill before this happens. In all likelihood, the
government will present the Women's Reservation Bill after the finance bill has been tabled in the Lok Sabha.

How will the bill impact assemblies?

Like the LS, 33 per cent of assembly seats will be reserved for women on a rotation basis. In most states, women comprise less than 15 per cent of total MLAs.

Why are the Yadavs opposed to the bill?

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It's not that they are against women, they say. What they want is sub-reservation for obc women and women from minorities so that educated and urban women do not monopolise political representation.

Why are the OBC and Muslim quotas difficult to implement?

There is no definite list or exact numbers of obcs; the community itself is reluctant on quotas. And any reservation on purely religious grounds is unconstitutional.

Why this bill may not further women’s empowerment

There's concern that only proxy candidates will be foisted upon the polity. Worse, parties remain women-unfriendly and undemocratic. And since this reservation will work on a rotational basis, elected women may have little incentive to work sincerely because the seat would be dereserved the following year. Of course, women can contest from the same seat even when it’s dereserved.

What about the Rajya Sabha and legislative councils?

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There’s no reservation for women in these though it’s recommended by a parliamentary standing committee.

Another reason why there is a case for increasing the number of women in legislatures, says Chandra Iyengar, is that women, whether in politics or in any other field, tend to get isolated and are compelled to play by the rules men have made to stay afloat if there are very few of them. “But when their numbers increase,” she says, “they enter a comfort zone and feel freer to speak their minds.” This could well be a reason why powerful pioneering women such as India’s Indira Gandhi or Britain’s Margaret Thatcher—who left a lasting impact on the politics of their countries—were often accused of not having done enough for women. But perhaps, they couldn’t—and in Sonia Gandhi’s Brave New India, they will. In the last few days, Sonia has already demonstrated what one powerful woman can do.

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