In an ostensible bid to break the deadlock on the Women’s Reservation Bill, the Congress Party has proposed to increase the number of seats in the Lok Sabha to 900 from its present strength of 545. The additional 30 per cent seats added are supposed to be reserved for women. They propose a similar 30 per cent increase in the strength of various state assemblies from 6,000 to 9000. The additional 3,000 assembly seats can be earmarked for women.
The underlying assumption is that male leaders of our ruling establishment in general, and the Congress Party in particular, have come to believe that the existing seats and political offices are a male monopoly. Therefore, they are not willing to share power with women. That is why a new separate political universe has to be carved out to accommodate women’s aspirations for a share in political power.
Let us take the logic further and make the zenana train of our legislatures fully autonomous from the mardana train by bringing about necessary changes in the law and the Constitution to mandate that the entire electorate of India be divided on gender lines — with women voting only for women and men likewise allowed to elect only male representatives. Thus, to make this task simple, we could have a system of dual member constituencies whereby every constituency will be represented by a man and a woman which will create a full fledged zenana train rather than add a few zenana dabbas (ladies compartments) to the existing male-occupied, male-driven train.
If women are to carve out a separate political universe, why enhance the strength of our legislative bodies by a mere 33 per cent, when we constitute half of this country’s population? Why not enlarge the Lok Sabha to 1,100 seats, and the State Assemblies to 12,000? To take matters to their logical conclusion, why do we not propose two separate legislative chambers — one for men, another for women — in the Lok Sabha as well as in state assemblies?
There is a good reason for it: women are not as good as men at hurling microphones, chairs and other missiles at their opponents. In general, women are also less likely to yell and scream or even use rowdyism in the House to force adjournments. They cannot manage to make as much of a nuisance of themselves as often as men do. Therefore, they are finding it increasingly hard to get a hearing in our legislatures. If the male and female legislatures are separated, women’s participation, confidence and safety levels are likely to witness a quantum leap upwards.
Those who think my proposals are absurd ought to consider seriously whether it is not equally absurd for the government to present a scheme of reservations for women whereby certain constituencies will be sanitized of male presence and where only women will be allowed to stand for elections.
In all such reserved constituencies, as proposed in the Bill, women will fight elections only against other women, thus declaring to the world that they are unfit to stand against men. This manner of reserving pre-selected territorial constituencies for women will also mean that in one-third of constituencies voters will have no choice but to elect women, whereas in the other two-thirds voters will be permanently denied the right to elect women.
This puts needless, artificial restraints on the democratic rights of voters. Such restrictions distort democratic institutions. There are several more unsavoury consequences of this proposal. Among others, it will debar women living in two thirds of India outside the ‘‘reserved’’ constituencies to contest elections.
For example, if the town a woman lives in is not declared a reserved constituency, her chances of contesting elections are reduced to just about zero. Thus, two-thirds of India’s female population will be denied the right to aspire for a political career.
If today male politicians gang up so effectively against women getting tickets when they constitute a tiny minority in our legislatures, it would be foolish to expect that they will allow women to get tickets outside the reserved quota, once 33 per cent seats are declared as women’s exclusive domain.
A similar pattern is evident with SCs and STs who have been permanently ghettoized to "reserved" seats. Thus, the representation of women will be artificially frozen at 33 per cent in perpetuity with hardly any scope for enhancement. Such a freeze may be justified for SCs and STs on grounds that their reserved seats were created in proportion to their share of the population. However, in the case of women, this proposal neither meets the criterion of proportionality nor of open-ended opportunities.
Finally, there are serious logistical problems with enacting such a law. To begin with, it will require an amendment to the Indian Constitution involving a lengthy and torturous process. Firstly, two-thirds of MPs must vote in its favour in both the Lok and the Rajya Sabha. Thereafter, the proposal has to be ratified by 50 per cent of all state legislatures because it requires an amendment to the Constitution. The process can and inevitably will be stalled. In this age of unstable coalitions, commanding a two-third majority in Parliament and getting such a controversial legislation passed through in various state legislatures is well nigh impossible.
In addition, even if by some miracle it got through the amending process, the new proposal of adding 33 per cent additional seats for women entails many more complicated exercises. The Delimitation Commission is currently engaged in rationalizing the uneven sizes of Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies as well as removing other glaring anomalies in the electoral system all over the country. They will have to start their job all over again to carve out 900 constituencies from 545 unevenly populated ones. This will take decades with every sitting MP and MLA having the right to raise objections to the criteria used for changing the size and contours of their constituency.
Further, every state assembly as well as our Parliament will have to enlarge the size of the Assembly halls that house the legislatures. This too could take many more decades, given the appalling inefficiency and slowness with which even simple roads are built by the Indian government. It is heart-breaking to find that the Congress Party, which led us to freedom and brought millions of women into the political domain under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, has become incapable of thinking of sensible measures to enhance the representation of women in our legislatures.
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Madhu Purnima Kishwar is Editor of Manushi and a Senior Fellow with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. This article first appeared in The Indian Express.
