Democracy is not merely a structural or a functional system. This, indeed, was not what the founding fathers of our Republic intended it to be. Democracy, in fact, is as much an ethical concept. As peoples’ participation is the backbone of democracy, in a modern democratic set up, the decision making process virtually begins and ends with the elected representatives. There will not be a disagreement that “people” include women also. However barring a couple of countries in the world, the women, who constitute about one-half of any nation’s population, are under represented in the various democratic institutions.
In India, women’s role in the political space is reduced to that of voters as well as activists within the parameters defined and earmarked for them by the political parties, which are once again, dominated by men. It is a fact that the political parties, irrespective of their ideology, have failed to provide adequate representation to women while selecting the candidates for elections. Resolutely, the parties keep women in the fringes of politics. Naturally, women’s representation in Parliament, the State Legislatures and in the local bodies suffered a set back due to this negative attitude.
The Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India in 1974 rightly pointed out the attitude of the political parties towards women’s representation in the democratic bodies. It said: “The parties reflect the established values of a male dominated society, which would be difficult to alter without certain structural changes in the socio –political set up. The parties would continue to pay lip services to the cause of women’s progress and the policy of tokenism by having a few women in legislative and executive wings of the government whose minority and dependent status offer serious obstacles in the path of their acting as spokespersons for women’s rights and opportunities”.
The pandemonium that accompanied when the Constitution Amendment Bill to ensure quota for women in Parlaiment and State Legislatures was taken up for voting in the Rajya Sabha (on March 8!) only confirms the observation of the Committee made over three and a half decades ago. The MPs who opposed the Bill went to the extent of snatching it away from the Chairperson of the House and tearing it to shreds literaly.It was not at all a democratic or matured behaviour the MPs put up. However, this was reflective of the chauvinism that is rooted in the existing socio- political culture that discriminates against women in the affairs of the state.
Ram Monohar Lohia, one of the founders of the socialist movement in India, attacked the segregation of women in politics and equated it with the segregation on the basis of caste identities. To him “the two segregations of caste and women are primarily responsible for the decline of the spirit. These two segregations have enough power to kill all capacity for adventure and joy. All those who think by the removal of poverty through a modern economy, the segregation will automatically disappear make a big mistake. All on war on poverty is a sham unless it is at the same time a conscious and sustained war on these two segregations”.(Ram Manohar Lohia, The Caste System, 1953). It is indeed an irony that the three most vocal opponents of the Bill – Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Sharad Yadav – claim to be the legatees of Dr. Lohia!
The History of the Bill
The 1974 Report on the Status of Women in India, submitted to the Parliament, recommended that “a system of reservation of a proportion of seats in these bodies (legislatures and parliament) would provide an impetus to both the women as well as the political parties to give a fairer deal to nearly half the population in the various units of the government. If women enter these bodies in larger number, the present inhibitions that result from their minority position in these institutions may disappear faster and give them grater freedom to articulate themselves” (p.302 (Towards Equality - The Report Of The Committee On The Status of Women In India, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare by a Committee, Department of Social Welfare, 1974). It recommended further that the political parties should adopt a definite policy regarding the percentage of the women candidates to be sponsored by them for elections to Parliament and State Assemblies.
However, these recommendations had to wait for long -- almost two decades -- to be acted upon. It did move forward. The 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments in 1993 were steps taken to get closer to the dream. For the first time in the history of local bodies in independent India, one-third of seats were reserved for women. And this remains a Constitutional imperative. This, indeed, was a radical step that initiated the demand in the political discourse to have such reservations to Parliamentary seats as well as the State Legislature. It is possible to trace the immediate provocation to the present Bill to the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments.
In this context, it will be interesting to see the women’s representation to Lok Sabha from 1952 to 2010. As the table shows that the women’s representation has never crossed the 10% mark except in the 15th Lok Sabha (present one). In 1971 and 1977, the 6th and the 7th Lok Sabha, women’s representation was abysmally low. It is the same story with the State legislatures too. If this is the case with the representation of women after half a century since independence, then it may take another century for women to touch the one third mark, without reservation. This is not to assert that reservation will empower the women. But this, indeed, will provide the political space for women and also the much needed exposure to the political discourse.
The contentious Women’s Reservation Bill was introduced for the first time in Parliament in September 1996, followed by the euphoria of the successful legislation of 73rd and 74th constitution amendment. The Bill that was known as the Constitution (Eighty First Amendment) was introduced when H D Deve Gowda was Prime Minister. Well. It was vehemently (and even physically) opposed, even at the introductory stage. Incidentally, the Gowda's government fell as the Congress withdrew its support. The Bill, however, remained alive and when I.K. Gujral was the Prime Minister, it was referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee which was headed by Geeta Mukherjee, veteran parliamentarian and Communist Party of India (CPI) member. That was in 1997.
As chairperson of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the Women's Reservation Bill, she worked hard to accommodate the different view points and take the measure to its logical end. However she could not do so until her death on March 4, 2000. And with the fall of the Gujral Government and the subsequent dissolution of the Lok Sabha (in November 1997) the Constitution Amendment Bill too lapsed.
The bill was introduced again by the NDA government in June1998 as the 84th Constitution Amendment Bill. Unfortunately, the Vajpayee government also fell prematurely and the Bill lapsed. It was introduced again in November 1999 after the NDA returned to power. However, as expected, the political parties failed to reach a consensus and the Bill was put on hold. Sarad Yadav, a Janata Dal MP at that time and thus part of the ruling combine then spoke aloud that such “reservation will do nothing but helping few more women with bobbed hair (Bal kattis) to enter Parliament’’. This futile exercise was continued in 2002 and 2003. Despite the offer of support from the Congress and the Left no progress was made in this front.
The UPA government introduced the Bill once again in May 2008. And it was introduced in the Rajya Sabha; the difference is that the Bill will remain alive in that case even if the Government fell and the Lok Sabha dissolved! All that is only academic discussion now. This time it could not be mowed down. It went through the committee stage and the Bill was moved in the Upper House amidst protest from the Samajwadi Party, JD [U] and RJD MPs. Finally the Women reservation Bill reserving 33 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies to women was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday 9th March 2010.
Seven MPs (four from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and one each from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Lok Janshakti Party and the Janata Dal-United) were suspended for their unruly behaviour in the Upper House. The real absurdity was that these MPs who were physically lifted from the House, sat on a protest in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi. The absurdity was given Gandhi’s opinion on the entry of women into the political space. The Bapu had held that as long as women of India do not take part in public life there can be no salvation for the country. ``I would have no use for that kind of swaraj to which such women have not made their full contribution”.
The Bill is expected to be introduced in the Lok Sabha in May 2010; however, in today’s political climate, one is not sure of that. The three Yadavs- Lalu, Sharad and Mulayam- and their party’s rank and file oppose it vehemently for flimsy reasons. Their contention is that since there is no provision in the Bill for reservation for women from the Muslim community and the Other Backward Classes, it will lead to the marginalisation of the women from these sections and provide an unfair advantage for the upper class women. The argument does not, however, explain the question as if that is so how do the men belong to backward castes and the Muslim community get elected to the parliament without reservation? Another question is as to what prevented these leaders of large and important political parties, and that too claiming to the legacy of Ram Manohar Lohia, from adopting pro-active measures all these years to open up educational and economic opportunities to the women from among the Backward communities?
It is nothing but politics of desperation. Men in the parliament are scared of loosing their seats. Even the one third reservations, it is for sure that some of them inadvertently will lose their fiefdoms. They were ``manning’’ the corridors of power for such a long years and do not want to loose that position. Hence the opposition!
Now those opposing the Bill are asking for a wider consultation to reach a consensus. The same excuses stalled the Bill in the earlier occasions for almost one and half decades since it was introduced for the first time in 1996.
The point is if democracy is seen as an ethical concern, keeping women out on the fringes of the political institutions is an un-ethical measure. The women, after all, constitute half the population. Let me conclude this article with a quote: No matter how noble the man is: or how good his intentions are, he cannot understand a woman’s needs or adequately represent her”.(Marie Mitchell Olesen Urbanski).
