Let's talk women’s reservation

Women’s issue in India has gained prominence once again with the Unnao and Hyderabad rape tragedies. Challenging patriarchy comes with its own sets of problems and negative fallouts. Sociologists report that violence against women has been on the rise ever since they have started stepping out of their traditional roles as homemakers. The more women enter into public spaces, the more violence they are likely to face. The rape of a vet on her way home from work in Hyderabad is a case in point.

Violence against women is a heinous manifestation of deep-seated prejudices against them which dictate that she must be confined to the domestic sphere. These prejudices still dominate our ethos when we note that India’s female labour force participation rate has been dramatically falling, and has fallen to a historic low of 23.3% as per the NSSO. To argue that women have won the battle to work is far from the truth.

The 2019 Lok Sabha lauded the fact that India had its highest number of women MPs in the Lok Sabha, which is a mere 14%! This is much below the already low global average of 24%. Moreover, in 1950 itself women formed 5% of Parliament. A mere 9% increase in the last 69 years serves as a sobering reminder of how slow the progress has been.

As per the Inter-Parliamentary Union report, India fares poorer than countries such as Afghanistan (27.7%), Pakistan (20.6%) and Saudi Arabia (19.9%). States like Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and the former state of Jammu and Kashmir don’t have a single women MP in the Lok Sabha. In fact, Nagaland has never had a female MLA! This begets the questions, how is India failing its women so miserably and why don’t we have reservation for women yet?

It has been 22 years since the Women’s Reservation Bill was first introduced in Parliament in 1996, and then in 1998, 1999 and 2008. All four times the Bill lapsed upon the dissolution of the house. Not only did the Bill face fierce opposition, it was torn apart in the Rajya Sabha by an RJD MP and some regrettable statements were heard, such as that by the JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav who is alleged to have said, “Do you think these women with short hair can speak for women, for our women."

Before we can kickstart the debate on why we must have women’s reservation, we must understand why we don’t. The Constituent Assembly originally comprised 389 members out of which only 15 were women. A study of the Constituent Assembly Debates enlightens us of the fact that the issue of women’s reservation was raised in the Assembly but was rejected for various reasons.

First, the Constituent Assembly lacked female support for it. Women were grossly underrepresented, as is evident by the numbers, and they failed to unite for the cause and build consensus. While there were some that were hesitant to ask for reservations, for reasons discussed in the next paragraph, there were some who explicitly opposed the demand. One of the members, Mrs. Renuka Ray, argued against it as she considered it an “impediment to our growth and an insult to our very intelligence and capacity.” She believed that in a free India, women would be evaluated on terms of ability alone and would not be in any need of reservation, citing the example of Ms. Vijaylaxmi Pandit and Sarojini Naidu, failing to realise they were the exception rather than the norm, and unable to anticipate the institutionalised sexism and discrimination that women would continue to face which act as obstacles to female success.

Second, to facilitate their hegemony, the British had spent years dividing Indian society on the basis of religion, caste, ethnicity through the tool of separate electorates. The Government of India Act, 1935 attempted to deepen this divide by extending separate electorates to women. This gave impetus to the widespread sense of fear and suspicion that reservation for women would be disruptive to the entire framework of society as it would pit women against men. This historical factor is probably what
led Mrs. Hansa Mehta to reassure the Constituent Assembly that “the women's organisation to which I have the honour to belong has never asked for reserved seats, for quotas, or for separate electorates. What we have asked for is social justice, economic justice, and political justice.” Had women continued to ask for reserved seats, they would have been painted as divisive and their loyalties towards the country would have come into question, for it was a time when India was still reeling from the fresh memory of partition and struggling to remain united. With that kind of burden, it is no surprise women did not push for it.

Third, some male members seem to be guided by the gender notions of their times which either did not see women as capable enough to hold positions in the government or they were seen as a threat to men and the moral fabric of society, as evidenced by the speeches of HV Kamath (“woman is ruled more by the heart than by the head”) and Loknath Misra (“if women claim freedom and equality…with men…there will be an end of our civilisation”), captured in the Constituent Assembly Debates. There were some that also believed the provisions in the Constitution were adequate to uplift women from their predicament. They also reiterated that men would ensure women’s welfare, thus, downplaying the need for reservations. Even a staunch supporter of women’s empowerment like Dr BR Ambedkar did not insist on women’s reservation. One Rohini Kumar Chaudhary went so far as to demand Constitutional protection in the Constituent Assembly against women as “in every sphere of life” they were trying to “elbow” men out.

Seventy years later, these reasons are no more compelling, as they were back then. Women are far from being in a position to “elbow” men out. Ability has rarely been the determining factor for winning elections, and despite women proving their capabilities in every field, they continue to remain underrepresented. Two major reasons for this are discussed here.

Money and muscle power have traditionally played an integral role in securing electoral victories. Women fare poorly in both departments given that economic empowerment of women in India is still at a nascent stage and is on shaky ground, with female workforce participation falling to 23.3%. Only 14% of women in the agricultural sector own the farms they work on and a majority of the property in India is still in the hands of men. Women also find it harder to acquire muscle power as they have traditionally been associated with domestic roles and not with positions of political leadership, making it a difficult task to break out of the mould. The growing phenomenon of criminalisation of politics further acts as a deterrent for women, for not only do they lack influence and experience in this male-dominated sphere, they are often at the receiving end of many of these crimes. Dirtier the politics, lesser the scope of female participation. A total of 43% of our MPs have criminal cases pending against them and they are primarily men, with a few exceptions like Pragya Thakur.

Another disadvantage faced by women is the reluctance of major political parties to give more tickets to women candidates. Such political parties generally have more legitimacy and clout, thereby increasing the winnability factor of their candidates. Despite having greater chances of electoral victory, women are not preferred as candidates by major political parties. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Congress gave only 13% of its tickets to women and the BJP gave 12% of its tickets. Majority of the female candidates contested as independents or from smaller parties. Parties like Trinamool Congress and the BJD, which have given 37% and 33% of tickets to women respectively, have done a far better job than our larger parties. This trend continues in state elections, despite the fact that in 2019, women candidates had a success rate of 11% which was substantially higher than the 6.4% of men. Another interesting statistic is that while women made up only 9% of the candidates, they won 14% of the seats, indicating that women significantly outperformed men.

Women’s reservation is a complex topic. While one-third reservation of women in panchayats and urban local bodies has led to a welcome spurt in female political participation and leadership, there are also instances of women being used as proxies by men to win elections in various states from Maharashtra to Bihar. The 108th Amendment Bill detailing female reservation was not without its own set of problems. However, alternatives such as the Manushi conceived Alternate Women’s Representation Bill exist to counteract such difficulties by proposing reservation at the candidature level etc. Many aspects need serious deliberation before a comprehensive legislation can be drafted on the issue, but the prerequisite to such deliberation is the existence of a sustained, persistent demand for greater women’s representation, a burden that must be shouldered by all the women of this country.

2014 was hailed as the year of ‘womanifestos’, with all major parties vying for 33% reservation for women in parliament and state assemblies. 2019 was no different. The BJP places it high on its list of priorities and yet, five and a half years after it has come to power, there has been no mention of it. Mainstream civil society discourse has also failed to maintain a sustained demand for women’s reservation. It is high time women, along with men, finally come together to make our leaders recognise that some glass ceilings are harder to break than others, and reservations will go a long way in facilitating women to shatter the one that’s been keeping guard at Parliament for 69 long years.

(The author of this article is an advocate. The views in the article are her own and do not reflect those of DNA)