The inauguration of the new Parliament building provides an opportunity to hold as priority a Special Session to debate and legislate for women in a way that is transformative for both women and politics.
Two major events are impending before the year-end: one, the inauguration of the new Parliament building with greatly enhanced physical space; two, the Government’s response, directed by the Supreme Court, to the PIL filed by the National Federation of Indian Women seeking re-introduction in Parliament of the 108th Constitutional Amendment (2008), aka Women’s Reservation Bill (WRB), that provides for women 33% reservation of the seats in Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies. The Supreme Court’s directive makes it imperative for the Government to break the long silence and either furnish a commitment to re-introduce WRB or present fresh thinking for an improved alternative legislation to achieve equitable representation for women in the top two tiers of political governance. The inauguration of the new Parliament building provides an opportunity to hold as priority a Special Session to debate and legislate for women in a way that is transformative for both women and politics. This two-part article argues why anew, and how.
At present Parliament has 78 women in the Lok Sabha; 29 in the Rajya Sabha. Touted as the highest ever numbers for women, these merely account for 14% of Lok Sabha seats; 12% of Rajya Sabha. Taking into account the number of women amongst the 4,120 Vidhan Sabha members, the overall percentage of women in Parliament and State Legislatures dwindles to a single digit—9%. Glacial progress in 75 years and at current low incremental rates, it’s likely to take another 40 years to reach even the minimum 33% “critical mass” recommended by the UN for “women’s voice” and that “other perspective and experience” to find effective expression.
Despite all major political parties standing committed in their manifestoes and speeches to the increase of women’s political representation in Parliament and State Legislatures, it has failed to happen despite a quarter-century focus on the issue. It is time to acknowledge that the flawed design of the legislation—vehemently pushed by the Congress and Left—sentimentally-trapped in a once-winning formula to the exclusion of all else, is responsible for this sad situation.
This intransigent stance has led to many missed opportunities during a period that saw a general overhaul of all constituencies as delimitation demarcated anew after the 30-year freeze on the process ended. Dual-member constituencies could have given women 33% by an alternative method and also avoided the ills that have developed in bloated arenas. But Congress/Left women MPS willfully refused to consider any sharing or bifurcating of constituency-space through Dual/Double membership, dismissing the proposition as reducing women to “appendages”/ “ghettoization”.
The problem with the WRB formula is that it is based on the provisions of Articles 330 and 332 in Part XVI of the Constitution entitled Special Provisions Relating to Certain Classes wherein reservations for Scheduled Castes and Tribes are provided. The SC/ST analogy and modalities were first extended to women in 1992 for the 73rd and 74th amendments that did succeed in reserving one-third seats in the Panchayati Raj and Urban infrastructure tier, bringing 3 million women into local governance. But the ease of passage experienced by the 73rd/74th Amendment was perhaps due to Parliamentarians not being directly affected; furthermore, elections at the local tier had not taken place for many years so there were few known stakes.
That smooth passage was not replicated later. The 81st Amendment—as WRB was numbered at first introduction in 1996 and subsequent differently-numbered-slightly-tinkered avatars—eventually metamorphosed into the 108th Amendment (2008) that passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010. All focused-on amendments to the above-mentioned Articles and sought one-third outright reservation of existing seats; rotation of seats after 5 years with reservation of another third by draw of lots till over 15 years each seat had undergone a 5-year spell of reservation for women. Review after 15 years.
Extremely shameful yet important to remember are the unseemly spectacles, including outright violence, that Parliament witnessed for the first time in its history each time the WRB was introduced/discussed—actual scuffles, tearing of the Bill, splintering of glass, overturning of chairs, physical intimidation of fellow members, including the Law Minister and the then-Vice President of India. While lofty political arguments were made for “sub-quotas within the women’s quota”/protection of underprivileged sections from elite-cornering etc., the underlying reality was the personal insecurity engendered by the outright jettisoning of one third male incumbents and the rest made prey to a game of musical chairs. It is this displacement-cum-hanging-Damocles-sword that is WRB’s Achilles heel. Ironically, displacement is totally unnecessary.
Therefore, the Government would be well-advised to change tack and now quickly draft a new legislation that expands the framework to accommodate more rather than continue to flog a dead horse. The new building provides ample physical space, although its lack was never a real impediment, only a red herring. As is the more serious misperception of a Constitutionally-imposed ceiling barring any increase in seat-numbers. The arguments presented here show this to be misconstrued as are other charges that alternatives such as dual-constituencies reduce women to “appendages/ghettoization”.
Women themselves are more ready than ever before to take part in the political processes—trending in ever larger numbers to vote to determine their future. For the first time, in the last general elections the average national percentage of women-voters exceeded that of men-voters—67.18% to the male 67.02%—by a whisker only but yet a dramatic shift from earlier huge lags. Altogether, in absolute numbers nearly 295 million women exercised their franchise.
Also, where and when given a chance to stand for elections, women prove their mettle more. Women’s higher “winnability rate” has been consistent over many elections now, but has not led to higher ticket-distribution to them. In the last general elections, a bare 726 women got a chance to contest from amongst 8,050 candidates. But of the 726 women-contestants 78 won—that is 1 in 9 women in contrast to 1 in 16 male-candidates. Both BJP and Congress gave fewer tickets to women: BJP only 56 or 14%; Congress a similar 52. In both parties a higher percentage of women-candidates scored as winners, demonstrating what is being called a better “strike rate”.
Only two regional parties—TMC and BJD—actually gave a third of party-tickets to women-candidates in the last general elections. Here too women demonstrated greater “winnability”; however, obviously, not all could succeed. These facts highlight the fallibility of another alternative that earlier did get some traction and endorsement by the then Election Commission—to amend the People’s Representation Act to ensure every political party gives a third of its tickets to women. Apart from the electoral risks per se, mandatory gender-based-ticket-distribution carries the additional risk of women shoved into a party’s less winnable areas, so offers no guarantee to actually seat women in the required strength.
Another alternative suggested is equally limited in its impact: the varying formulae adopted by some neighboring countries to proportionately “top up” a political party’s electorally-won strength with specific allocations for women. That strategy leaves women without any constituency-base and ever more dependent on party bosses.
Furthermore, as we move towards the second quarter of the 21st century are women still to be fobbed-off with achieving “minimum critical mass”? Is it not beyond time to fulfill in a larger measure our Constitutional promise of equality? More so, as other critical issues now significantly intertwine with women’s inability to get a level playing-field while, conversely, women’s induction on scale could make the critical difference to help resolve the serious conundrum created by the current uniformly oversized, unwieldy constituencies. A reality that will keep exacerbating as we reach 2026 and beyond when the delimitation taking note of the latest population census is scheduled to reconfigure constituencies across the country.
We stand at a political fork on the women’s political representation question today: the beaten path of the WRB or the less travelled road of an alternative like dual-member constituencies that provides women parity-status and carries additional advantage to recalibrate constituency-sizes without disrupting the present delicate political inter-state balance? Dual-members is a strategy that originates from none other than the genius of Gandhiji and is therefore embedded in our history, enjoying constitutional validity and precedent. Also, meticulous mapping and data on each and every constituency is now available to allow quick administrative action to implement legislation to this end. It could make all the difference.
In the next part I will deal with both the history and the specific strategy.