On
the occasion of the centenary of International Women’s Day (March 8), we, Indians
have a reason to feel ashamed of and conscience-striken over the state of
affairs of the country’s polity: and, yet have another to console ourselves for
having attempted to set right the wrong, albeit, belatedly.
Our
tall claim of being the largest democracy in the world (or the second largest, according
to the version of the USA) requires
to be subjected to introspection when the fact that India
lags behind its neighbours and Asia as a whole
when it comes to gender balanced legislatures stares on our faces. Reservation
to ensure fair representation of women in national legislative bodies seems
more the norm than exception globally with almost 100 countries having some
quota system in place. India
happens to be in a minority group of about 20 countries that have no system at
all to ensure a more gender-balanced national legislature. How ill-informed or
under-informed are our leaders who fight against Women’s Reservation Bill could
be gauged by the contention of Lalu Prasad, RJD chief, that nowhere in the
world do women have reservation in legislative bodies.
The
average proportion of women in the national legislatures is 18.5% for the Asian
region, considered low by international standards, but almost twice as high as
in India
(10%). Even within South Asia, only Sri Lanka (6%) has a worse record. Both
countries have no quota system for women in their parliaments. In Pakistan, 22%
of the National Assembly seats are held by women, made possible through the
quota policy that reserves 17.5% of seats for women. In Nepal, the proportion
of women members is 33% thanks to the constitutional stipulation that women
must constitute at least 33% of the legislatures and electoral laws that mandate
that 50% of any party’s candidates should be women. In Bangladesh, a
constitutional amendment was brought in to reintroduce quotas for women, by
which 45 seats out of the total 345 seats are reserved for women. After 2008
election, Bangladesh
parliament has 65 women MPs - 19% of the total seats. Incidentally, China has 21%
women in the National People’s Congress without any quota policy.
Rwanda, which has reserved seats for
women, is the only country in the world with more women (56%) than men in their
national legislative body. This is followed by Sweden
with 47%, South Africa (45%),
Iceland (43%), Argentina (42%), the Netherlands
(41%) and Norway and Senegal with 40%.
In the list of 11 countries with the highest representation of women in their
national legislatures, five (Sweden,
South Africa, Iceland, the Netherlands
and Norway)
have voluntary political party quotas for women. Angola
and Costa Rica,
both with 37% seats occupied by women, have electoral laws granting quotas. Only
two countries in the list, Denmark
(38%) and Senegal
have no quota systems. The widely accepted benchmark to ensure critical mass of
women parliamentarians is 30%. Yet, the proportion of women, in parliaments
globally stood at just 18.8%, according to the Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU).
By July 2008, 21 countries had met the 30% critical mass target. It was also noted that countries that reached
30% benchmark had done so through measures such as proportional representation
system and electoral quotas. Countries that rely solely on the usual majority
electoral system (like India)
consistently show low levels of representation of women.
From
all these facts and figures, the truth that we can discern is that, gender
inequality or gender discrimination is universal, irrespective of ethnicity, language,
culture, religion, or community and hence the oldest form of social inequality
or social injustice in the history of civilization worldwide. Even in our
country, with the peculiar stratification of society as varnas/castes, the lower
one subservient to the higher in the order, the male-chauvinist society keep
women as a whole subjugated to men, all through their lives, from birth to
death. Manu Dharma sastra decrees, ‘A woman should obey the father as an infant,
obey the husband in her youth or and obey the children when widowed. A woman
cannot at anytime exercise her will independently’ (chap. 5.S.148). RJD leader
Lalu Prasad (who, along with other opponents of Women’s Reservation Bill, Mulayam Singh Yadav of
Samajwadi Party, Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal–United and Mayawati of the BSP, champion
the cause of social justice and positive affirmative measures like reservation
for OBCs in education and employment), echoes the same oppressive voice of Manu
Smriti when he says, “It’s a male-dominated society. If I ask my wife to vote
for a particular party, do you think she will vote for another party?”
If
the caste-ridden society of ours, people in the lower orders are considered and
treated as slaves of those in higher orders, then the status of women is
nothing but ‘slaves of the slaves’ with no independence or discretion. True
social justice requires removal of this universal, crudest and oldest form of
injustice meted out nearly half the population because of birth and hence
emancipation of women should be on top of the agenda of the movement for social
justice.
Women
are also economically exploited. India already has the most working
women in the world, a truism goes beyond the statistic that they comprise 35%
of the nation’s total formal workforce of 400 million. Yet, they are denied of
equal wages for equal work, property and inheritance rights etc., although they
supplement family income and in large number of families the main supporters.
It
was because of these historic injustices meted out to women that the true
rationalist, original thinker and pioneer of the struggle for social justice in
India,
Thanthai Periyar took up the task of women’s emancipation as the foremost of
the Self-respect movement. His views on women’s emancipation are far-reaching
and beyond time-limits, perceptible for centuries to come. The book ‘The Second
Sex’, written by Simone de Beauvoir and originally published in French is
considered to be the foundational track of contemporary feminism and held as
the Gospel by feminists all over the world. But Periyar wrote his testament
‘bg© V‹ moikahdhŸ?’ (Why woman became a slave?) even 20 years prior to that
book. This book of Periyar is comparable to that of ‘Origin of Family, Private
Property and the State’ written by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels.
It is
with this objective of social justice through women’s emancipation and
assiduously treading the path shown by Periyar and Anna, that the DMK-led by
Kalaignar had been consistently supporting the women’s Reservation Bill for
providing 33% reservation for women in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. The Bill
was originally drafted by the United Front government in 1996-97. Since then
both the BJP (but not its Shiv Sena ally) and the Congress have tabled it in
Parliament several times. But as has been well documented, without the
requisite backing from the largely male-dominated political class, neither
party could push it through.
It is,
therefore, a matter of considerable national pride and really significant in
political sense that led by both UPA chairperson Tmt. Sonia Gandhi and Prime
Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, the government was able to summon the political
will to go for the breakthrough, which
will surely have far going and profound effects on the ground.
In
the tortuous 14 years that it has taken
for the bill to come this far, there is little doubt that it has taken women at
the very rung of the social ladder to demonstrate what can be achieved when
they are ‘given’ the power to change things. The 33% reservation for women in
panchayat raj institutions – now raised to 50 – has changed the political, social
and economic landscape of rural India.
Little question that when reservations for women were first instituted at the
panchayat level, politicians used female relatives as proxies to keep rivals at
bay and extend their circle of power. Study after study shows, however, that
these same women used the foot in the door to improve the lives of those around
them in terms of improving female education, healthcare, roads, connectivity, even
bringing in new concepts like rain water harvesting and better management of
agri products.
The
opponents of the Bill insist on sub-quota for OBCs and minorities within the 33%
reservation for women, for which Kalaignar has given a convincing reply – let
us get the women’s quota first and later work out sub-quotas. Moreover, the
Constitution provides reservation in legislatures for Scheduled Castes and
Tribes on community basis and not for OBCs and minorities. So this has to be
addressed in the larger framework of the existing general category (sans quota
for SCs and STs), if these protagonists are sincere to the cause, they espouse,
of seeking social justice for OBCs and minorities and mobilize people towards
that goals. If their plea is accommodated right now in the Women’s Reservation
Bill, it may be struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Moreover,
their apprehension that OBCs might get un/under-represented in the new
arrangement is unfounded given the harsh reality in our electoral polity. Winnability
being the sole criterion, almost all political parties invariably field their
candidates from among the largest caste/community in respective constituencies,
which cannot be the forward ones. OBCs have more than fair representations in
Parliament and State Assemblies right now because of this factor.
The
World Economic Forum in its 2009 report on the global gender disparities ranks India 114th in
a list of 134 countries. Given the troubling statistics, starting with the
worsening sex ratio in the 0-6 age group in population, eliminating the gender
gap in its various dimensions should be a top political priority for rising India. Greater
representation of women in legislatures and Parliament is sure to force a shift
of focus towards this priority.
Clearly,
the Women’s Reservation Bill may be no magic wand to cure all our ills – female
foeticide and infanticide, female illiteracy, the skewed sex ratio, malnutrition,
assault and battery, sexual slavery – but it will give the right-thinking woman
the ability to back her gender-friendly voice power packed, enforceable
legislation. The problems that face women will not change with one bill/legislation.
Nevertheless, it’s a beginning. May be a hundred years from now there will be
no need for reservation for women at all!
(14-03-10)
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