Among the many charges against the newly elected UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, one of the charges is that he did not support the Women’s Reservation Bill and defied the party line in parliament on this issue. The feminists have lapped up this stance of his to spew more venom on him. In the article, let us look at what exactly is the Women’s Reservation Bill and the practical problems associated with this.
The bill was first introduced by the HD Deve Gowda government in the year 1996. The Women’s reservation Bill proposes to amend the constitution of India to reserve 33% of all seats in the Lok Sabha and in all state legislative assemblies for women. For reservation in the Lok Sabha, one-third of all constituencies would be reserved for women on a rotation basis. If a particular constituency is reserved for women during one general election, it will not be a reserved constituency for the next two elections. This Bill was never passed by the Lok Sabha, despite the Congress, BJP and the Left claiming to be in support of the bill. In 2008, the Manmohan Singh government introduced the bill in the Rajya Sabha and two years later, the bill was passed by the upper house despite high drama and political scuffles between members. Sonia Gandhi, Sushma Swaraj and Brinda Karat, three top leaders of the Congress, BJP and Left respectively were seen walking hand in hand in celebration of the ‘historic occasion’. The major opposition to the bill has come from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal United (JDU) and Samajwadi Party (SP). The JDU has since then changed its chance and now claims to be in support of the Bill.
The principal reason behind the idea of the Women’s Reservation Bill is the gender disparity in the parliament. The presence of women candidates in parliament has always been low and has been not more than 11-12%. In the 16th Lok Sabha that was elected in May 2014, there are 62 women making up 11% of the total strength. A lot of political analysts and self-styled feminists have attributed the bill not seeing the light of the day to the patriarchic social system in India. They claim that voters think women candidates are less capable of giving them a fair representation in parliament and hence always opt for men. A lot of them have even pointed out that this patriarchy is restricted to not just India, but this is a phenomenon in America also. When Hillary Clinton lost the elections to Donald Trump, a lot of feminists attributed Hillary’s loss to her being a woman.
Is reservation of women in parliament the answer to empowering women? The answer is a big NO. The basic principle of reservation for women is flawed to the core. Below are some points as to why it is flawed.
1) What happens to meritocracy? In a particular constituency, if there is a man who is more capable of representing the citizens than the women who would fight the elections, then he should be elected. Like age, caste and religion, gender should never be a criterion in giving tickets to anyone. The best and most capable and honest person should get a chance to represent the people of his or her constituency. Women elected from reserved constituencies would always be seen to have not been elected on merit basis, even if she is actually capable.
2) Rise of dummy parliamentarians – In India, this concept has been followed in the panchayat and municipality elections. So, some of the local wards are reserved for women. When looked at practically, what happens is that although a woman is officially the councilor, it is her husband or father who actually does the remote controlling. So the woman representing the constituency is only in paper and hence does not actually amount to women empowerment.
3) Lack of motivation for an incumbent candidate – The incentive for an MP or MLA to work for his constituency may see a reduction if he knows that he will be ineligible to represent that particular constituency in the next election as it would become a reserved constituency.
If the lawmakers in our country really intend to do something good for the women, below are some of the things they can get started with:
1) Tough punishment for rapists – We have seen numerous instances when perverted rapists are being dealt with too kindly. In the famous Nirbhaya rape case, one of the rapists is not in police custody and is scot free, just because he was less than 18 years old at the time of committing the heinous crime. As if that was not enough, he has been given a sewing machine and some money, so he can get reformed. We have many cases in our country where girls as young as 5 or 6 years are being raped in schools and school buses. The law in our country is too lenient with such beasts. Punishments must be made a lot tougher than what it is today and such perpetrators must be given a death penalty without any mercy. Sadly, the same persons who argue for reservation for women in parliament would turn human rights activists and argue against death sentence and talk about reforming such perpetrators.
2) Tough punishment for dowry related crimes and female infanticide – The feminists would not agree, but the fact remains that a woman will not always support a cause favoring women. Today, despite there being laws against receiving dowry, dowry is a norm in many parts of India and the prospective mother in law is also a party to it. Even among the educated folks in our country, dowry is a common practice. We read about dowry deaths in newspapers on a regular basis. The government must go tough on people demanding dowry and harassing women on this basis. Laws should be framed in such a way that there is fear among the people to demand a dowry, resulting in reform in society.
3) Removal of archaic religious practices like Triple Talaq – We all know that most political parties in India go out of the way to please one particular minority community. As a result of this, practices like triple talaq are practices to this day. The government must make such practices illegal and punish the offenders strictly.
Reservation in any form is not the rational answer to any of the problems in our country. The caste based reservation, instead of solving the problems of the oppressed classes, has only increased the divide and pushed meritocracy to the back seat.
Likewise, Women’s Reservation Bill, if passed, would not help in solving any of the practical problems of women and would only succeed in pushing meritocracy further backward.
If the lawmakers of our country really want to do something for the women in the country, there are various other things as mentioned above that they can implement.