After a prolonged struggle, women\u2019s groups tasted a victory with a Women\u2019s reservation bill that was passed in the Upper House which aimed to reserve one-third of seats in the Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies for Women. The passage of the bill was certainly not without a tinge of fear and apprehensions steering a debate in the political fraternity and reaching a point of impasse.
While undoubtedly the passage of the bill in the Upper House, was a landmark achievement in the checkered history of India, for it was a humble beginning to move from politics of idealism and tokenism to politics of representation and inclusiveness.
However, if we are to look at the global statistics, as per the Global Gender Gap report 2022, India ranks 135 in terms of gender parity out of 146 countries and 48 as far as political empowerment and representation are concerned. India\u2019s record has also been poor regarding women\u2019s economic participation and opportunity. The abysmal record of Women legislators, in the Parliament is certainly not very encouraging and is seen in total negation with our democratic traditions. Women\u2019s participation has been consistently low. This is a grim reality of not only for the Union Legislature but also for the state assemblies where participation is not very encouraging.
It is equally important to look at alternative measures to empower women which align with democratic norms and are inclusive. Political exigencies may have compelled us to carve out space for women in the parliament but is it not more viable for political parties in the first place to engender inner party democracy by reserving seats within the party for female candidates?
Recently, Rajya Sabha decided to discontinue the use of phrases like \u2018No Sir\u2019 and instead to have gender-neutral responses in the Parliament sessions. Though a small step but indeed a big leap to encourage women\u2019s participation and representation in the Parliament.
Further, educating women en masse right from its rudimentary stage could also be a more realistic and pragmatic route to bring about emancipation and realizing the long-cherished goals of social justice and freedom.
It is equally imperative to understand that women do not constitute a homogeneous group and that women\u2019s loyalty to their exclusive caste or community identity is far greater than their gender-based identity.
Initiatives at the political level certainly will have a tremendous impact on society\u2019s power structure and relations. While the women\u2019s reservation bill was passed in Rajya Sabha, it is unfortunate that the bill saw no progress in the Lok Sabha and lapsed. The debate and discussions on the women\u2019s reservation bill have only been symbolic and have not been accorded priority in the national political discourse.
Recently, the Supreme Court also accepted a Public Interest Litigation, thereafter sending a notice to the Centre seeking its response about the revival of the women\u2019s reservation bill. The non-introduction of the bill the Bench held was rather arbitrary and illegal.
While India is celebrating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, the time is ripe to bring about genuine reforms for women across all strata in the decision-making process.
It is imperative to deal with the issue of women\u2019s participation in a conciliatory manner by synthesizing distinct ideologies fostering dialogue in reason and negotiating it with \u201cinsight and sensitivity\u201d.
Charu Kalra is a senior level Political Science school instructor and content developer with E-learning portal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a prolonged struggle, women\u2019s groups tasted a victory with a Women\u2019s reservation bill that was passed in the Upper House which aimed to reserve one-third of seats in the Parliament and State Legislative Assemblies for Women. The passage of the bill was certainly not without a tinge of fear and apprehensions steering a debate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}