Women’s Reservation is the latest political watchword
in India.Now it is time to think about the real empowerment of women community.
According to Hillary
Clinton,” The Women community of the world has a common language called
silence ”.It shows how the community suffers world over.
Equitable representation
of women in the highest decision making body is urgently required measure to
empower the women politically .No nation stand proud if it discriminates
against any of its citizens, and no society could claim to be part of the
modern civilized world unless it treats women on par with men.In keeping with
the point to provide gender equality in political arena,the present Government
has been trying to bring consensus among all political parties in favour of the
women’s reservation Bill.The Government had introduced women’s reservation
Bil,2008, in the Rajya Sabha amidst protests from opposition parties.After this
several attempts were made to introduce the bill in the Parliament but the
Government could not pass the bill, due to various political reasons [1].
Choice
of Reservation for women in Independent India
Evolution of Independent
India on the basis of liberal democracy has exposed the contradiction between
the stated political equality and pre-existing social and economic
inequalities. Reservation has become an unavoidable choice for political
representation to provide scope for equal status and opportunities for
depressed classes and women to overcome all inequalities. The ever first
amendment made to the Constitution of India in 1951 is to accommodate non-discrimination
to Article 15 & 16, which empowered the state to make reservation in favor
of any disadvantaged group without being challenged on the grounds of
discrimination [2].
During 80’s the
mobilization of women at the grass-root level and pressure from women’s
organizations through policy and legal interventions made the political parties
to view women as a constituency and included women’s issues in their manifesto.
During this period the demand for reservation for political representation has
re-emerged. Some policy statement on reservation have been made in which the
National Perspective Plan for Women(1988) is one such recommends for 30%
reservation for women at Panchayat and zilla or district level and municipal
bodies to be filled by election. This demand was emerged out of the need for
engaging women in “development planning”. But the same was not demanded
for the decision making on policy and law making arenas of state assemblies and
parliament. Voice raised by women’s groups during the National Conference on
Panchayat Raj and Women, made the late Rajiv Gandhi to accept the proposal of
reservation for women in Panchayat Raj Institutions [3].
Many parliamentarians
and political parties appreciated this move as historical measure and
revolutionary approach. But the same was not appreciated on the debate on
reservation for women in State Assemblies and Parliament in the recent decade.
This shows the will of political institutions in the country to keep the women
in the lower rung of the state only for implementing the decision of the larger
political body, in which men have the predominant control and women not to get
their due representation in policy and law making process of the country [4].
Possible
Benefits:
1. More women
participation in politics and society.
2. Social norms in India
strongly favour men, therefore, reservation for women is expected to create
equal opportunity for men and women.
3. Due to female
foeticide and issue related to women’s health, sex ratio in India is
alarming at 1.06 males per female.It is expected this will change the
society to give equal status to women.
4. Women are supposedly
more resistant to corruption.Therefore,this bill might prove to be a factor
restraining the growth of corruption.
Possible
Drawbacks
Passing the Women
Reservation Bill may cause bias in the democratic process because of the
following reasons:
1. It may hurt the self
respect of women who have come up on their own ability, it may result in lesser
respect for women in the society. It may also bring down the quality of leaders.
2. It is likely to begin
the hatred between genders as male may feel deprived of certain
privileges, in turn create more social issues.
3. Parties will be
forced to find women whether or not the women identify with the overall party
agenda and the rest of the issues concerning all citizens, as opposed to just
women’s issues.There are no provisions to prevent discrimination against men
because of finding women who are inclined towards women’s issues alone, or , in
other words, biased against men.
4. Powerful men members
of parties will be tempted to find female relatives to reserve the seat for
themselves during the following cycle.
73rd
Constitutional Amendment- historical milestone for women’s political
participation
To protect the interests
of disadvantaged segments of the population, notably women, the scheduled
castes (SC) and the scheduled tribes (ST), and to ensure their participation in
democratic decentralisation process, the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments
was passed with the provision of Reservation on 23rd April 1993. The Act
reserved one-third of all seats in the Local Self Governing bodies for rural
(All three levels of Panchayats) and urban areas (Municipal body) respectively
for women and reservation for SC/STs proportionate to their population.
Though reservation for
SCs and STs are in place in other elected bodies (National and State
legislative assemblies), the 73rd Amendment is the first one in India that
mandated women’s reservation in local body election. Article 243D of 73rd
Constitutional Amendment Act in detail cover the manner in which
reservations are to be provided to women and others belonging to the SC / STs
in the local panchayat election at all three levels.
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