HE has Laloo Prasad Yadav's rustic charm and is as outspoken as Chandra Shekhar, though he usually makes it a point not to air his dissenting views outside the party forum. Only, Union Communications Minister Beni Prasad Verma couldn't keep quiet about the Government-piloted women's reservation bill and vehemently protested against it.
This, when all political parties favour the populist measure, at least 'in principle', and Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda is under tremendous pressure from various women's groups and the Left parties to implement the bill.
But Verma is in no mood to relent. "I am not anti-women. But the move to reserve seats for women in Parliament and in the state assemblies is a conspiracy to take back whatever reservation has been extended to the backward castes," he says. According to him, job reservations for women—even 50 per cent—is a much more necessary and welcome step than the 'politically motivated' parliamentary reservation.
He claims that in populous states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which together account for roughly one-fourth of the parliamentary and one-fifth of the assembly seats, only 15 per cent of the women population are literate. Of which, hardly one to two per cent are graduates. "Let the state take the responsibility for educating them and making them qualified," says Verma, adding that only then should seats be reserved for women in Parliament. That too, if necessary.
He first blurted out his anti-bill sentiments at a backward class rally in Luc-know in early December in the presence of Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav. (Verma also belongs to the SP which has 17 members in the Lok Sabha). Subsequently, he has been able to veer the party around to his view.
"We will decide the Samajwadi Party's stand on the women's reservation issue after we discuss it in detail in our party," says Mulayam. The defence minister's response shows that the women's reservation bill did not have a consensus even in the Cabinet, and the delay in its passage in Parliament is not without reason.
As a youth activist for socialist parties in the late '50s, and later as a prominent political personality in Uttar Pradesh, Verma has always been a votary of reservation in jobs, but not beyond that—definitely not in Parliament or the assemblies. He believes that if the women's bill is implemented, it will harm society.
Interestingly, it was Verma who announced months before the elections to the Uttar Pradesh assembly in October that Mulayam would be the chief minister if the United Front came to power. Once the major political parties failed to get a clear mandate, the leaders are still struggling to form a government in Uttar Pradesh. Verma and Mulayam have been together for over three decades in the same party (or parties), but the rank and file fear that Verma's latest anti-reservation statement may hurt their relationship. Mulayam is not in favour of the women's reservation bill, but harbours strong views on other forms of reservations, especially for the OBCs.
In fact, the SP-sponsored OBC rally in Lucknow on December 9 even demanded that seats reserved for Scheduled Castes in Parliament and the state assemblies should go in favour of the OBCs at the end of every 10 years.
But unlike Mulayam, Verma is disenchanted with the politics of reservation. "It should only be a one-time affair and not be a permanent feature in our system. Reservation should be a time-bound process. In its present form, reservation promotes casteism, and it poses a much greater threat to social harmony than communalism," he told Outlook. "It's time to speak against caste-based reservation even at the cost of being unpopular. The women's reservation bill would be one more folly." Certainly, promoting casteism is not the best way to fight the BJP-sponsored communalism.
Of course, Verma is quick to defend his opinion: "It is my personal view, and not the Samajwadi Party's. But I have got the feedback that my views are being appreciated by a large number of parliamentarians." Still, even the personal opinion of a Cabinet minister, if that comes in the form of dissent, has serious political implications. It might put Prime Minister Gowda as well as the SP in an embarrassing position.
Given the strong pro-reservation stance of most political parties, especially that of the ruling United Front, this anti-reservation statement may stall his ministerial career. But Verma, who has brought a whiff of change in the Telecom Ministry—a far cry from erstwhile colleague Sukh Ram's corrupt ways—seems prepared to pay the price. "We should learn to speak in the national interest. Personal loss or gain are immaterial."
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