FOCUS
Women’s Reservation Bill: for whom?
There are more serious problems than the reservation of women in the parliament. Indian women undergo sufferings from womb to the tomb which needs greater consideration in any democratic polity. The women politicians of India should be well aware of the truths of women’s life in the country. Only 55 per cent of rural house holds in India have access to safe drinking water, this means that 45% of women spend a considerable amount of time carrying water from distant wells and other sources. Women and girls living in urban slums are particularly affected by the inadequate sanitation facilities. One of the reasons for low attendances and dropout of girl students from schools in India is the lack of toilets in schools. Census 2001 provisional figures indicate that 54.16 per cent of women are able to read and write. Still 245 million Indian women cannot read or write, comprising the world’s largest number of unlettered women. Besides, national averages in literacy show wide disparities. For instance, while 95 per cent of women are literate in Mizoram, only 34 per cent in Bihar are literate. A Malayalam daily carried a report of importing people from the northern Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh for road construction in Kerala. There were around 100 women and 50 children who were brought in a cargo truck. The truck was taken under custody of highway police on the way to Calicut. These people were brought to work on the highways for the government contractors who use them as animals and pay less than the native workers. This is the plight of women in our country, where the virtues of Sita, Draupadi and Savitri are eulogised in our scriptures and devoted in our supposedly rich culture. The marginalized women work on streets all day, through-out their life, without even knowing the regulations like ‘minimum wage’ and ‘equal payment’ passed for their benefit. Will the reservation bill empower these women? The vast majority of women in our country remain outside the sphere of media limelight
The inspiration that our democracy exudes was on full view as Meira Kumar became the first woman to become Speaker of the Lok Sabha. The top three posts in the country’s constitutional and political sphere are now held by women - Pratibha Patil is the president of India; Sonia Gandhi is the president of India’s ruling party and now Kumar, a Dalit earns recognition. Also raising the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies is being seen as a way out to arrive at a consensus on the Women’s Reservation Bill which is being opposed in the present form by some political parties. Over a decade after the exercise started, there is no unanimity on how to go about with the task without antagonising various sections. Samajwadi party is against the present bill format. Amar Singh has expressed his view as, “If the bill is cleared in its present format then careers of the many established and sitting MPs would be finished as their traditional seats would be reserved for women”. Now, does it make any sense? Politics is not a career at all. It is a decision to serve the interest of lay man, and nowhere in our constitution it is written that seats in the parliament are reserved for men only. But what our Laaluji says is much more interesting and makes a little sense also, as he alleges that, “pushing of the bill in its present form is a big conspiracy to finish the regional parties and prevent backward sections of the society from coming up”. Former BJP leader Kalyan Singh said in this regard that both BJP and Congress want to keep the downtrodden sections away from power and development. But the women members who get reservation can be from backward societies also.
The idea of making a legal provision for reserving seats for women in the Parliament and State Assemblies came into being during Rajeev Gandhi’s tenure as the Prime Minister of India when the Panchayati Raj Act, 1992 (73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment) came into effect granting not less then 33% reservation to women in the Panchayati Raj Institutions or local bodies. Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda made the actual promise for reservation of seats for women in Parliament and State Assemblies in 1996.
But the consensus arrived at by some political parties was to dump the Bill. For them 181 seats in Parliament is too great a number to be sacrificed for the mere ideal of women’s empowerment or adequate political representation. The very idea of losing such large number of seats to women makes the male politicians panicky. However what needs to be appreciated is reservation will go a long way in ensuring political equality through active participation of woman from both urban and rural areas. When the backward and fundamentalist society like Pakistan can grant 33% reservation to women in its Senate then why should India, the largest democracy in the world, lag behind?
BJP spokesperson Sushma Swaraj said recently that BJP was opposed to government’s move to withdraw the bill pending in the Rajya Sabha and to bringing of a fresh bill in Lok Sabha. She also hopes the passage of the bill after a decade of failures. “No male member will be willing to vote himself out”, said a member of the previous Parliamentary Standing Committee, which went into the controversial bill, suggesting that it would be a tall order to expect the members to back any measure that could hit them hard. A former Union Minister, who has earlier held parleys with opposition parties to reach a consensus on the issue, suggested that a solution can be found if the number of seats in the Lok Sabha, which now has a strength of 543, is increased to accommodate women. “Instead of sharing the existing seats, increasing the number of seats in the Lok Sabha could be a solution. If that is done, the government can even bring the Bill in the Budget session,” another member of the Committee said. Former BJP leader and MP Vinay Katiyar said if the Bill was passed in the present form, it will affect the unity and integrity of the country and create a ‘big problem’, but did not explain the ‘big problem’.
But President Pratibha Patil had in her address to the joint sitting of Parliament stated that the Bill was one of the priority agenda of the government. Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, a strong votary of the measure, said “there is a new Parliament, a new atmosphere and fresh efforts are being made for a consensus.” There are others like Brinda Karat who wants the bill to be passed. She was recently reported saying that, “as far as my party is concerned, 100 per cent support assured the day they bring the bill into parliament for passage”.
Its proponents say it would lead to gender equality in Parliament, resulting in the empowerment of women as a whole. Historically, the Bill’s supporters say, women in India are deprived of education, employment or individual freedom. Increased political participation of women will help them fight the abuse, discrimination, and inequality they suffer from. All those who argue for the enactments of women’s reservation bill are elite people at the top of the social hierarchy, both socially and economically. But what about the millions of women, who are still ignorant and spend their life blowing the clay hearth in some remote hamlet, who are unaware of their rights in society and have no capacity to fight the rigid and discriminate social circumstances which compel them to live and die within four walls of home.
There are more serious problems than the reservation of women in the parliament. Indian women undergo sufferings from womb to the tomb which needs greater consideration in any democratic polity. The women politicians of India should be well aware of the truths of women’s life in the country. Only 55 per cent of rural house holds in India have access to safe drinking water, this means that 45% of women spend a considerable amount of time carrying water from distant wells and other sources. Women and girls living in urban slums are particularly affected by the inadequate sanitation facilities. One of the reasons for low attendances and dropout of girl students from schools in India is the lack of toilets in schools. Census 2001 provisional figures indicate that 54.16 per cent of women are able to read and write. Still 245 million Indian women cannot read or write, comprising the world’s largest number of unlettered women. Besides, national averages in literacy show wide disparities. For instance, while 95 per cent of women are literate in Mizoram, only 34 per cent in Bihar are literate. A Malayalam daily carried a report of importing people from the northern Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh for road construction in Kerala. There were around 100 women and 50 children who were brought in a cargo truck. The truck was taken under custody of highway police on the way to Calicut. These people were brought to work on the highways for the government contractors who use them as animals and pay less than the native workers. This is the plight of women in our country, where the virtues of Sita, Draupadi and Savitri are eulogised in our scriptures and devoted in our supposedly rich culture. The marginalized women work on streets all day, through-out their life, without even knowing the regulations like ‘minimum wage’ and ‘equal payment’ passed for their benefit. Will the reservation bill empower these women? The vast majority of women in our country remain outside the sphere of media limelight
There is still a huge section of women who suffer and do not get coverage in media anywhere. Isn’t this a matter of concern for our lady leaders who want 33 percent representation in the parliament? It is easy to speak in the air conditioned seminar halls, but it is very difficult to go to those people who really suffer and to safeguard their rights in the society. It is true that the reservation bill will improve political participation of women in the Indian democracy but to improve the wellbeing of women in the country it needs to draw policies focusing on the women’s and girls’ life in the country. Women are dependent on others for their identity. She is somebody’s daughter, then somebody’s wife, and at last she is recognized as somebody’s mother. Why the society want a woman to be dependent on others even for their identity? Kiran Desai, a Booker prize winner was asked by a journalist, “Why she did not marry?” Does this make any sense, why cannot a woman be successful on her own? Issues like female feoticide, dowry deaths and eve teasing are rampant even today. According to National Crime Recording Bureau (NCRB) one case is registered almost every hour against eve teasing, much more go unreported. Women’s goal in the life in our rigid society is to marry, rear and look after children. Now what is this rubbish? When man can be free to decide what he wants, why cannot a woman do that? Women are not even allowed to decide their own goals in life in our male dominating society, then how will our male politicians allow them to be a strong number in the polity. Government should take necessary steps to address these ground realities. Only then it will ensure the wellbeing of women in a country where women is always considered as the weaker section of society and always kept out of decision making process in democracy.
Since the majority of India’s unlettered people are female, literacy and education programmes need to focus on girls and women. Perhaps educating a woman is the best way to improve the wellbeing of the entire family. Educated women are more likely to see the benefits of having their babies immunized against polio & other deadly diseases. Women contribute significantly to poverty eradication and economic development. Investing in girls and women amounts to investing in the future as women are the primary care taker of children, it ensures returns over generations. The Primary Education Programme focuses on enrolment but not on the retention of girls in schools. In the absence of an enabling and empowering environment, women are likely to stay alien to all empowerment agendas drawn by the government. It is true that women have excelled in every run of life. Be it politics, business, social activism and media. Yet much has to be achieved to empower the marginalized section where lot of things- cruel and unjust happens beyond the reach of media and non-government organizations. A huge gamut of issues still remains unsolved and millions of cries remain unheard. This should change first to change the equations of male and female in the parliament.
The real test of democracy is the creation of equality of opportunity for the hitherto deprived sections of society. It requires both a favourable social atmosphere and an individual attitude. Individual attitude and social atmosphere is a sort of reversible equation: one influences the other, in both directions. In practical terms it means that efforts have to be made at various levels of society simultaneously. Any attempt, is bound to affect adversely some vested interests. So, one has to be prepared for a long drawn out struggle on all the fronts. Democracy at home should go hand in hand with democracy in Parliament and Panchayat. It has to become a way of life; it has to be adopted in literary vocabulary and in political discourse alike.
The inspiration that our democracy exudes was on full view as Meira Kumar became the first woman to become Speaker of the Lok Sabha. The top three posts in the country’s constitutional and political sphere are now held by women - Pratibha Patil is the president of India; Sonia Gandhi is the president of India’s ruling party and now Kumar, a Dalit earns recognition. Also raising the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies is being seen as a way out to arrive at a consensus on the Women’s Reservation Bill which is being opposed in the present form by some political parties. Over a decade after the exercise started, there is no unanimity on how to go about with the task without antagonising various sections. Samajwadi party is against the present bill format. Amar Singh has expressed his view as, “If the bill is cleared in its present format then careers of the many established and sitting MPs would be finished as their traditional seats would be reserved for women”. Now, does it make any sense? Politics is not a career at all. It is a decision to serve the interest of lay man, and nowhere in our constitution it is written that seats in the parliament are reserved for men only. But what our Laaluji says is much more interesting and makes a little sense also, as he alleges that, “pushing of the bill in its present form is a big conspiracy to finish the regional parties and prevent backward sections of the society from coming up”. Former BJP leader Kalyan Singh said in this regard that both BJP and Congress want to keep the downtrodden sections away from power and development. But the women members who get reservation can be from backward societies also.
The idea of making a legal provision for reserving seats for women in the Parliament and State Assemblies came into being during Rajeev Gandhi’s tenure as the Prime Minister of India when the Panchayati Raj Act, 1992 (73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment) came into effect granting not less then 33% reservation to women in the Panchayati Raj Institutions or local bodies. Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda made the actual promise for reservation of seats for women in Parliament and State Assemblies in 1996.
But the consensus arrived at by some political parties was to dump the Bill. For them 181 seats in Parliament is too great a number to be sacrificed for the mere ideal of women’s empowerment or adequate political representation. The very idea of losing such large number of seats to women makes the male politicians panicky. However what needs to be appreciated is reservation will go a long way in ensuring political equality through active participation of woman from both urban and rural areas. When the backward and fundamentalist society like Pakistan can grant 33% reservation to women in its Senate then why should India, the largest democracy in the world, lag behind?
BJP spokesperson Sushma Swaraj said recently that BJP was opposed to government’s move to withdraw the bill pending in the Rajya Sabha and to bringing of a fresh bill in Lok Sabha. She also hopes the passage of the bill after a decade of failures. “No male member will be willing to vote himself out”, said a member of the previous Parliamentary Standing Committee, which went into the controversial bill, suggesting that it would be a tall order to expect the members to back any measure that could hit them hard. A former Union Minister, who has earlier held parleys with opposition parties to reach a consensus on the issue, suggested that a solution can be found if the number of seats in the Lok Sabha, which now has a strength of 543, is increased to accommodate women. “Instead of sharing the existing seats, increasing the number of seats in the Lok Sabha could be a solution. If that is done, the government can even bring the Bill in the Budget session,” another member of the Committee said. Former BJP leader and MP Vinay Katiyar said if the Bill was passed in the present form, it will affect the unity and integrity of the country and create a ‘big problem’, but did not explain the ‘big problem’.
But President Pratibha Patil had in her address to the joint sitting of Parliament stated that the Bill was one of the priority agenda of the government. Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, a strong votary of the measure, said “there is a new Parliament, a new atmosphere and fresh efforts are being made for a consensus.” There are others like Brinda Karat who wants the bill to be passed. She was recently reported saying that, “as far as my party is concerned, 100 per cent support assured the day they bring the bill into parliament for passage”.
Its proponents say it would lead to gender equality in Parliament, resulting in the empowerment of women as a whole. Historically, the Bill’s supporters say, women in India are deprived of education, employment or individual freedom. Increased political participation of women will help them fight the abuse, discrimination, and inequality they suffer from. All those who argue for the enactments of women’s reservation bill are elite people at the top of the social hierarchy, both socially and economically. But what about the millions of women, who are still ignorant and spend their life blowing the clay hearth in some remote hamlet, who are unaware of their rights in society and have no capacity to fight the rigid and discriminate social circumstances which compel them to live and die within four walls of home.
There are more serious problems than the reservation of women in the parliament. Indian women undergo sufferings from womb to the tomb which needs greater consideration in any democratic polity. The women politicians of India should be well aware of the truths of women’s life in the country. Only 55 per cent of rural house holds in India have access to safe drinking water, this means that 45% of women spend a considerable amount of time carrying water from distant wells and other sources. Women and girls living in urban slums are particularly affected by the inadequate sanitation facilities. One of the reasons for low attendances and dropout of girl students from schools in India is the lack of toilets in schools. Census 2001 provisional figures indicate that 54.16 per cent of women are able to read and write. Still 245 million Indian women cannot read or write, comprising the world’s largest number of unlettered women. Besides, national averages in literacy show wide disparities. For instance, while 95 per cent of women are literate in Mizoram, only 34 per cent in Bihar are literate. A Malayalam daily carried a report of importing people from the northern Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh for road construction in Kerala. There were around 100 women and 50 children who were brought in a cargo truck. The truck was taken under custody of highway police on the way to Calicut. These people were brought to work on the highways for the government contractors who use them as animals and pay less than the native workers. This is the plight of women in our country, where the virtues of Sita, Draupadi and Savitri are eulogised in our scriptures and devoted in our supposedly rich culture. The marginalized women work on streets all day, through-out their life, without even knowing the regulations like ‘minimum wage’ and ‘equal payment’ passed for their benefit. Will the reservation bill empower these women? The vast majority of women in our country remain outside the sphere of media limelight
There is still a huge section of women who suffer and do not get coverage in media anywhere. Isn’t this a matter of concern for our lady leaders who want 33 percent representation in the parliament? It is easy to speak in the air conditioned seminar halls, but it is very difficult to go to those people who really suffer and to safeguard their rights in the society. It is true that the reservation bill will improve political participation of women in the Indian democracy but to improve the wellbeing of women in the country it needs to draw policies focusing on the women’s and girls’ life in the country. Women are dependent on others for their identity. She is somebody’s daughter, then somebody’s wife, and at last she is recognized as somebody’s mother. Why the society want a woman to be dependent on others even for their identity? Kiran Desai, a Booker prize winner was asked by a journalist, “Why she did not marry?” Does this make any sense, why cannot a woman be successful on her own? Issues like female feoticide, dowry deaths and eve teasing are rampant even today. According to National Crime Recording Bureau (NCRB) one case is registered almost every hour against eve teasing, much more go unreported. Women’s goal in the life in our rigid society is to marry, rear and look after children. Now what is this rubbish? When man can be free to decide what he wants, why cannot a woman do that? Women are not even allowed to decide their own goals in life in our male dominating society, then how will our male politicians allow them to be a strong number in the polity. Government should take necessary steps to address these ground realities. Only then it will ensure the wellbeing of women in a country where women is always considered as the weaker section of society and always kept out of decision making process in democracy.
Since the majority of India’s unlettered people are female, literacy and education programmes need to focus on girls and women. Perhaps educating a woman is the best way to improve the wellbeing of the entire family. Educated women are more likely to see the benefits of having their babies immunized against polio & other deadly diseases. Women contribute significantly to poverty eradication and economic development. Investing in girls and women amounts to investing in the future as women are the primary care taker of children, it ensures returns over generations. The Primary Education Programme focuses on enrolment but not on the retention of girls in schools. In the absence of an enabling and empowering environment, women are likely to stay alien to all empowerment agendas drawn by the government. It is true that women have excelled in every run of life. Be it politics, business, social activism and media. Yet much has to be achieved to empower the marginalized section where lot of things- cruel and unjust happens beyond the reach of media and non-government organizations. A huge gamut of issues still remains unsolved and millions of cries remain unheard. This should change first to change the equations of male and female in the parliament.
The real test of democracy is the creation of equality of opportunity for the hitherto deprived sections of society. It requires both a favourable social atmosphere and an individual attitude. Individual attitude and social atmosphere is a sort of reversible equation: one influences the other, in both directions. In practical terms it means that efforts have to be made at various levels of society simultaneously. Any attempt, is bound to affect adversely some vested interests. So, one has to be prepared for a long drawn out struggle on all the fronts. Democracy at home should go hand in hand with democracy in Parliament and Panchayat. It has to become a way of life; it has to be adopted in literary vocabulary and in political discourse alike.
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