Reservation for women in politics

(MainsGS2:Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.)

Context:

Recently, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders launched a short hunger strike seeking early passage of the long-pending Women’s Reservation Bill.

About Women’s Reservation Bill:

The Women’s Reservation Bill proposes to reserve 33% of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies for women.
It was first introduced in the Lok Sabha as the 81st Amendment Bill in September 1996 by the Deve Gowda-led United Front government.
The Bill failed to get the approval of the House and was referred to a joint parliamentary committee which submitted its report to the Lok Sabha in December 1996 but the Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha.
In 1998, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government reintroduced the Bill in the 12th Lok Sabha but again failed to get support and lapsed.
In 2008, the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government tabled the Bill in the Rajya Sabha and it was passed with 186-1 votes on March 9, 2010.
However, the Bill was never taken up for consideration in the Lok Sabha and lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha.

Constituent Assembly debates:

The issue of women’s reservation came up in Constituent Assembly debates as well, but it was rejected as being unnecessary.
It was assumed that a democracy would accord representation to all groups, for instance, in 1947, noted freedom fighter Renuka Ray said, “We always held that when the men who have fought and struggled for their country’s freedom came to power, the rights and liberties of women too would be guaranteed”.
However, in the following decades, it became clear that this was not to be the case, as a consequence, women’s reservation became a recurrent theme in policy debates.
For instance, the Committee of the Status of Women in India, set up in 1971, commented on the declining political representation of women in India.
Though a majority within the Committee continued to be against reservation for women in legislative bodies, all of them supported reservation for women in local bodies.
Slowly, many State governments began announcing reservations for women in local bodies.

Reservation in local bodies:

The National Perspective Plan for Women recommended in 1988 that reservation be provided to women right from the level of the panchayat to that of Parliament.
These recommendations paved the way for the historic enactment of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution which mandate all State governments to reserve one-third of the seats for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions and one-third of the offices of the chairperson at all levels of the Panchayati Raj Institutions, and in urban local bodies, respectively.
Within these seats, one-third are reserved for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe women.
Many States such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Kerala have made legal provisions to ensure 50% reservation for women in local bodies.

Arguments for the Bill:

Proponents of the Bill argue that affirmative action is imperative to better the condition of women since political parties are inherently patriarchal.
Despite the hopes of the leaders of the national movement, women are still under-represented in Parliament, thus, reservations will ensure that women form a strong lobby in Parliament to fight for issues that are often ignored.
There is now evidence that women as panchayat leaders have shattered social myths, been more accessible than men, controlled the stranglehold of liquor, invested substantially in public goods such as drinking water, helped other women express themselves better, reduced corruption, prioritised nutrition outcomes, and changed the development agenda at the grassroots level.
Today, India has a high percentage of crimes against women, low participation of women in the workforce, low nutrition levels and a skewed sex ratio, thus to address all these challenges, it is argued, we need more women in decision-making.

Arguments against the Bill:

Opponents of reservation for women argue that the idea runs counter to the principle of equality enshrined in the Constitution.
They say that women will not be competing on merit if there is reservation, which could lower their status in society.
Women are unlike, say, a caste group, which means that they are not a homogenous community, therefore, the same arguments made for caste-based reservation cannot be made for women.
Women’s interests cannot be isolated from other social, economic and political strata.
Some argue that reservation of seats in Parliament would restrict the choice of voters to women candidates.
This has led to suggestions of alternate methods including reservation for women in political parties and dual member constituencies (where constituencies will have two MPs, one of them being a woman).
But some parties have pointed out that even these may not work as parties may field women candidates in unwinnable seats, or women may contest the elections but not get voted to power, or they may get relegated to a secondary role.
As men hold primary power as well as key positions in politics, some have even argued that bringing women into politics could destroy the “ideal family”.