Sonia Gandhi has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to get the Women’s Reservation Bill passed in Parliament and is reported to have promised full support. One is reminded of a picture flashed in all newspapers in March 2010 where one saw two of the fiercest political opponents, Sonia Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj, in a happy embrace in the precincts of Parliament. What was the occasion for this unprecedented spectacle and close bonhomie? Though introduced by former Prime Minister Deve Gowda for the first time on 12 September 1996 in the Lok Sabha, no concrete action was taken by various governments to effectuate the legislation on Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament and state legislatures. Everyone expected the legislation to be passed immediately. In fact, Prime Minister I.K. Gujral promised the earliest priority in passing this Bill, but nothing happened.
When the UPA government came to power in 2004, it announced that the Act would be its first priority. But instead one had total silence on the Bill in the President’s speech on the opening day of the Parliamentary session. This was an open and clear notice to women activists that the Bill, which had been so proudly projected as a commitment to gender equality, has been quietly buried, and is not likely to be revived in the conceivable future.
Thereafter, the Bill was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee, but nothing happened till 2010. The Women’s Reservation Bill or the Constitution (108th Amendment) Bill, 2008 was proposed to amend the Constitution of India to reserve 33% of all seats in the Lok Sabha and in all state Assemblies for women.
The Rajya Sabha passed the Bill on 9 March 2010. It was this event that made Sushma Swaraj and Sonia Gandhi embrace each other so emotionally. However, the Lok Sabha never voted on the Bill. The Bill lapsed after the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha in 2014.
Every time from 1998 to 2014, whenever Parliament met, women’s representatives were assured in all solemnity by each major political party that it hoped to pass the Bill in that very session. In reality, no further progress was made in the matter of women’s reservation. The reality is that male chauvinism will never support any move to reserve seats for women, because it will take away one-third of the present strength of Parliament and hand that to women. I, therefore, feel that the way out can only be by increasing the strength of Lok Sabha to 750 and making one-third of seats to double member constituencies with one seat therein to be reserved for women. Of course, women will be eligible to contest from other than reserved seats and may, therefore, increase their number beyond one-third of the total Parliament seats.
Thus, Lok Sabha membership can be easily increased to 750, with a provision that one woman candidate will mandatorily be elected from those double-member constituencies, and, depending upon the votes received, it may be that even both elected candidates could be women. This law was laid down by the Supreme Court decades ago in former President V.V. Giri’s case. The same principle will apply in the case of elections to state legislatures. Space in Parliament is not a problem. Shivraj Patil, once Union Home Minister, is on record in admitting that space is not a problem if Parliament decides to increase the number of seats.
The alternative of double member constituencies can be done by amending Article 81(2) of the Constitution by increasing the present strength, which can be easily done if political parties are genuine in their commitment to the Bill.
I know that the Delimitation Commission has already marked the constituencies on the basis of single member seats. But I do not think it is necessary to redraw the constituencies to make it double.
By a rule of thumb, the top one-third of the constituencies having the maximum voters in each state could be declared double-member. If the legislators are sincerely genuine, they could even submit an agreed list. At present, of course, a fresh process has to be initiated in Parliament again, because the previous Reservation Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the previous Lok Sabha in 2014.
In the just finished election propaganda in Uttar Pradesh, not one party, including the so-called seculars, with the exception of the Socialist Party (India), included the item of reservation for women in their election manifestos. Can such male chauvinism be allowed to exist in our country?
With the 2019 Parliamentary elections approaching, is it not time for the women leadership in both the Congress and BJP, through Sonia Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj, to jointly warn all the parties that they will no longer tolerate this injustice and neglect to continue? They may legitimately continue their differences on other subjects in the light of their own respective programmes.
Now that Sonia Gandhi has promised full support to the Bill, PM Modi, who stands for Swachh Bharat (which is a programme to enhance the dignity of women in the country), cannot have any objection. His request to Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati should invoke immediate positive response from those leaders.
Any suggestion by opponents of the Bill that women’s quota be further sub-divided by reserving proportionate number of seats for OBC and SC women, amounts to creating hurdles. Talking of Dalits separately is a ruse to deny women a real share in power. The biggest supporter of Dalits and backward castes Dr Lohia had said that reservation for women was an instrument of social engineering. He could never have suggested splitting the strength of women’s quota by further splitting them into sub quotas.
At present, there are only 61 women members in Lok Sabha. The shame of discrimination against women and male chauvinism can only be corrected by providing women reservations in the legislatures—both in Parliament and state Assemblies.
Justice Rajindar Sachar is a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Delhi.