The Alternative Women's Reservation Bill promoted by YogendraYadav that advocates reservation for women in party lists instead of reservation of seats, is noalternative at all since it does not have as its aim the guarantee of a minimum number of women in thedecision-making bodies. It will ensure more women in party lists but not in Parliament or in State Assemblies.
In fact, in the 25-odd countries that have a quota for women in party lists, the system of elections isbased entirely or substantially on proportional representation (PR) unlike in India. In a PR system, a partydecides on a list of candidates and linked to the percentage of votes polled after crossing a minimumthreshold, the names in descending order are considered elected. However even this has been found to beinadequate to increase women's representation because parties often put the women's quota candidates at thelower end of the list.
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So it is not enough just to have a quota for women on the party list but to put in place legal guaranteesthat puts their names in the upper end of the list. Another interesting experience is from South Africa whichalso has a PR system. The major party, the ANC, voluntarily decided on a 30 per cent quota for women in itslist of candidates. This influenced other parties who also put up more women. Women demanded that the names ofwomen candidates be put in equal number on the upper end of the list. Today women constitute almost 30 percent of the South African Parliament.
Going by the global experience, if women's quotas in party lists are to be a viable method of increasingwomen's representation in elected bodies in India, we will require a complete overhaul of the electoral systemand a switch to proportional representation and a guarantee of women alternating with male candidates in thepreferential order of party lists.
To introduce reservation for women in party lists within the present system is a kind of tokenism that Indianwomen do not need. Anyone with a minimum knowledge of how party tickets are distributed knows that there is avery strong pro-incumbency factor. Few parties would risk upheavals within by removing sitting MPs or MLAs andreplacing them with women, certainly not to the extent of 33 per cent. Difficult or unwanted seats would befarmed out to women to meet the quota requirement. The proposed alternative suggests having the State as theunit for Lok Sabha elections and the district for a unit in Assembly elections. India does not have atwo-party system. Parties have uneven strengths within States and districts, thus such a clause would notprevent unwinnable seats being given to women. Moreover, the compulsion of seat adjustment between differentparties in this era of coalition politics makes such a suggestion simply impractical.
The opponents of the present Bill are particularly incensed at the provision for rotation of seats. Manycountries and parties have a fixed tenure for elected positions. This is much more democratic than having asystem where individuals can monopolise positions of power for decades. In a huge country like India rotationwill help bring to the fore a large bank of talent and human resources. Rotation of seats will also ensurethat women all over India will have the opportunity to benefit from the reservation. During the discussions inthe Parliamentary Select Committee when the Bill was first mooted, women's organisations were open to thesuggestion that the rotation of seats should take place after two terms, that is ten years instead of fiveyears. However, once it was declared that women's reservation would exist only for 15 years the two-termrotation proposal was automatically given up
The proponents of reservation in party lists claim that this method will address the vexed issue of OBCreservation within women's reservation being demanded by some parties. This is not correct. Just as partieswill decide the names of women candidates if reservation for women is made in party lists so also will theydecide which woman is to replace a male candidate if his seat is reserved for women. At present, due tostruggles against upper caste hegemony, OBC men form the single largest caste group in the Lok Sabha. If someof those seats are reserved for women, the caste composition is not likely to change but the gendercomposition will change and the only difference will be that an OBC female candidate will replace the OBCmale.
These are some of the reasons why the proposal to shift ground from reserved seats to reservation in partylists is considered a dilution and a diversion by most women's organisations. The main focus at present shouldbe on the role of the Government. It is not the Bill that is flawed but democratic processes and the lack ofmorality in those who rule India.
When the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, retreated from his responsibility to put the Women'sReservation Bill to vote in Parliament and instead referred it to the Speaker, he was making Parliamentaryhistory though for the wrong reasons.
Firstly it is the job of the Government not the Speaker to decide and ensure the business of the House.Secondly, the Prime Minister did so with the full knowledge that the Speaker, belonging to a party bitterlyopposed to women's reservation, had publicly stated his opposition to the Bill in the name of there being noconsensus.
Thirdly, Mr. Vajpayee had the required numbers to get the Bill through. It is for the first time that anyPrime Minister in India received the unstinting support of the main Opposition parties that too in writing,for the passage of a controversial Bill.
The sordid drama brings to mind a chapter in Parliamentary history that could have lessons for the present.The Indian Parliament had seen equally stormy scenes on the issue of women's rights, when on February 5, 1951,Dr. Ambedkar, India's first Law Minister, moved the Hindu Code Bill in the Constituent Assembly. The processof reform and codification had been opposed strongly by the self-proclaimed defenders of Hindu culture andtradition including the predecessors of the present rulers organised then in the Hindu Mahasabha. After monthsof prevarication, Nehru withdrew the Bill.
Ambedkar disgusted with Government capitulation handed in his resignation letter on September 27, 1951 inwhich he wrote "For a long time I had been thinking of resigning my seat from Cabinet. The only thingthat held me back from giving effect to my intention was the hope that it would be possible to give effect tothe Hindu Code Bill before the life of the present Parliament came to an end. I even agreed to break up theBill and restricted it to Marriage and Divorce in the fond hope that at least much of this labour may bearfruit. But even that part of the Bill has been killed. I see no purpose in continuing to be a member of yourCabinet."
However, after the ensuing General Elections, the continuing pressure from women's organisations and movementsoutside Parliament and a larger support base within Parliament persuaded Nehru to enact the reforms in 1956,though in a truncated form.
There is no Ambedkar in the Indian Government today to assert the principles of accountability and commitmentto the struggle to eliminate discrimination against women. But it would be better to wait for a moresympathetic Parliament and Prime Minister than to push through a so-called alternative that brings littlebenefit to women.
