For long, not only in India but in almost every part of the world women haven't been viewed with the same lenses with which a man is seen. For long, this section has been perceived not as a leader but a mute follower. Exceptions were always there. But they were few and far in between. There was an Indira Gandhi or a Benazir Bhutto or a Hillary Clinton. But, we all know from where they all came from. Had it not been a Nehru or a Bhutto or a Clinton around, we probably won't have heard the above mentioned names.
What this bill targets is creating not an Indira or Benazir but many more of Mayawatis or Mamta Bannerjis.
Since independence, our policy makers are designing policies favouring larger participation of women section in nation's growth. But still, female literacy lags behind a pathetic 54 percent. If we want to create a truly democratic society, then women empowerment is one of the foremost goals to achieve. There can be several ways of getting close to that goal. Providing better economic opportunities, better education facilities, or greater political representation could be the few possible ways which come directly to the mind.
Out of these three, providing political representation through reservation is one means by which parties can gain the maximum political mileage in the shortest span of time. And we all know how far-sighted our parties are, so the bill was the call of the day.
The Bill was first introduced in the Lok Sabha on September 12, 1996. Though, it has been introduced in Parliament several times since then, the Bill didn't see the light of the day because of lack of political consensus. Stuck long for about fourteen years in parliament, the bill finally passed with near unanimous agreement this February. Most of the major political parties supported the bill whole heartedly. A few disagreements arose, uproar in Rajya Sabha happened, a few MPs expelled for their indiscipline, but amidst of all these the bill was finally passed with 186 votes in favour and 1 against.
We will try to scrutinize the bill in detail in subsequent sections, but before proceeding further, a little detail about what actually encompasses the bill.
Major points:
- Bill provides 33% reservation for women in the Parliament and all Legislative Assemblies. In already reserved seats for SC/ST, one-third be reserved for women.
- Billl doesn't provide any separate reservation for minorities and OBCs' women.
- Bill provides the provision of rotation of constituencies, which means that every constituency will be reserved for women at least once in 15 years. In normal cases elections are held every five years, so each constituency undergoes election exactly three times. Out of these 3 terms, one term will be reserved for women, and rest two open for all.
- No provision made for any reservation in upper house of parliament, Rajya Sabha.
- Bill expires after a period of 15 years.
This is it.
The bill says it all. More reservation. More promise of upliftment. The question arises, will the above measures really help, and more important, is it really required?
The bill says that every constituency will be reserved once for women representatives. What it means is that all the contestants for a particular constituency in a particular election will be women. So, the election of a woman candidate is ensured. But, in subsequent elections that constituency will be made free for any one to contest. This can have positive as well as negative repercussions. A woman candidate can leave a mark on the constituency by her good work and can contest that seat even after the reservation is withdrawn, provided the party supports her candidature. With the male dominated political class this is really a tough thing to achieve because there will be many male politicians gunning for that unreserved seat. This will force that woman to contest from some other reserved constituency which may not be a familiar territory for her. Hence, a low probability of winning the election. So, why would a politician, male or female, be motivated to nurse a particular constituency when he or she is almost guaranteed of not representing the constituency again?
In the current era of modernization (strictly for a few numbered metro cities), the bill certainly doesn't make much sense. Why reservation is needed when we already have a strong, aware female political class comprising of distinguished personalities like Brinda Karat, Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and several others? They didn't require any help to become what they are today. Reservation is definitely a luxury for such class. But as we look deep down, we find the real significance of the bill. For villages and cities in the interiors, reservation is a necessity. Necessity, because it is the mindset of the feudal society, which needs a strong stir, a complete overhaul in its thinking, towards how it perceives women.
The bill is indeed a very powerful tool if used judiciously by the targeted section. But, if we leave a minuscule part of elite urban women population, then we also know that the provisions of the bill will be misused to send more and more dummy representatives to the assemblies. There are many wives and daughters around, who will take the advantage of the bill.
Despite all flaws, we can't deny that a step has been taken, and the step augurs well for the future. Perception towards women needs to be changed, if we want to develop a society equitable in every aspects and there is no denying that the bill will help immensely to achieve that goal.
I will summarize what you just said above:
ReplyDeleteThere are 3 aspects of this bill:
1.Development Aspect:There is going to be no perceivable change at all in the development status because of this bill. I looked up the internet to find out how we compare to the other countries in G20. We rank 134 on the HDI, making us the lowest ranked country among the G20 countries.The HDI is directly proportional to Life Expectancy(LE), Education(Adult and Children) and natural log of GDP per capita. This bill not going to change none of the above and therefore doesn't help the development of the country.
Political aspect:In this aspect the bill is similar to other reservation bills of the past.Our political parties want to show that they are committed to development. But they also know that actual development is a lengthy and time consuming process. So they resort to promises of reservation.
Social aspect: this is where the bill does something of consequence.The bill will change the way women are looked at in this country. It will create a new political equation.This bill assures political representation to women. This will be very effective in the longer run. After all, who would have imagined that founding of Congress in 18885 would have led to the Indian Independence movement.
Although, HDI is an important tool to measure development of a region, it presents an incomplete picture. How can development of a region be quantified on three terms (Life expectancy, education and GDP per capita) only?
ReplyDeleteI do agree that the bill doesn't directly contribute to the aspects you mentioned. But, it helps women enter politics. Greater women participation (in election both as a candidate and as a voter) means greater awareness among them, which in turn will help things becoming better in coming days.
A stronger, self dependent women section will help to eradicate many of the problems of rural India.
Reservation in panchayats has already begun to show some positive effects. In many places, it has been observed that women are more development oriented in their work as compared to their male counterparts. Also, many NGOs or self help groups feel easier to operate in such places.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
ReplyDeletewhere knowledge is free;
where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
........
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
........
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
--Rabindranath Tagore ( Gitanjali )
The great brouhaha finally unfolds again. Our theatrical politicians seem never to lose a chance to draw nation's atttention. After all the nation seems to be so glued to IPL and it seems necessary to look for an alternative entertainment. What better than to re-open an issue , lingering for last 14 years, talking and discussing of which seems to be a favourite pass time for this hypocritical paranoid nation.
Here enters the 'women's reservation bill'.
Some statutory warnings !!
1. The Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill, seeks to reserve one-third of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies. The allocation of reserved seats shall be determined by such authority as prescribed by Parliament.
2. One third of the total number of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes shall be reserved for women of those groups in the Lok Sabha and the legislative assemblies.
3. Reserved seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in the state or union territory.
4. Reservation of seats for women shall cease to exist 15 years after the commencement of this Amendment Act.
Le t me start with some of the generally accepted views ( I take no responsibilyt for disruption of your physical and mental well beingness on reading these views.)
-- it will lead to women empowerment.
-- lead to gender equality
-- wil lead to a more balanced social development
--will help women fight the abuse and discrimination they have been suffering from.
--it will help the elite class more.
--It will cause further exploitaiton of the already poor and subjugated class .
I just don't want to elaborate upon the above points, after all they aren'nt any of my view.
Why is this nation so obssessed with the word 'reservation' ? That appears so sickening to me. This seems to be kind of 'bramashtra' or some kind of 'kalp vriksh' ( tree that fulfills all wishes). Why is that the path to a solution of any problem always has to pass though this so called milestone of reservation ? Have we all totally suspended the critical reasoning of all our mental faculties. Has our minds really lost in the 'dreary desert sand of dead habit'. Have we got so accustomed to lives in darkness that no light ever seems to reach us.
Before agruing on the bill and its pros and cons—I must ask you a question, WHERE ARE WE GOIND MY FRIENDS ?
How many more divisions do we need to create in society at the name of reservation ? How long will we keep consoling ourselves behind the thick blanket of laws, only to add appendix to the already heavy and verbose constitution , which eventually get converted t to a record breaking pending court cases or become a means to let the nation further get exploited by the utterly miserable political system ?
Where will the buck stop , My friends ?
Will this bill work for India- It's totaly a really irrelevant question to me. Inorder to make something work we must have an aim, a target. If the target is achieved then it can be concluded that the concept 'works' otherwise 'does not work'. So an aim is the prerequisite to make an idea work. What will something work in a desultory society consisting of a meandering collective mass of people( majority ). Any outcome can have a pyshic effet of 'working' when a yardstick of measurement of the outcome is absent.
ReplyDeleteWhat is an idea of society to me ? A place where all forms of ideas will find its place. A place where every form of human energy will its see its outlet. A place where infinite number of paths to the fulfillment of dreams would exist, just as varied and multitude in nature as life itself. A place where man's action has not been bounded by its burden of the past, aplace where thoughts do not turn into repressed desires.
Will the womens bill help bring our society any closer to the one of my dreams. I just have the gravest doubts.
Points to consider
-- problem can be soolved only by coming to the enery level of the problem
--this bill is just the extension of the present society , not in any means a path to any better society.
--a better society must fulfill one criteria – must provide a path to the release of every form of humann energy. Every human being has his own energy level and the society must provide a means of its release.
--Its not a pity that we have corrupt politicians. But rather it's a pity that our society has such favourable conditions that makes nurturing of such politicians very easy. They survive and thrive beacuse this society provides them all the necessay ingredients – weak , ingnorant, easily manipulated , rep
repressed minds. Mind is the barrier and mind is the doorway. A ignorant mind can easily be enslaved and then it itself becomes a small epicentre
for the propagation of ignorant ideas. This wave of ignorance now spreds and captures other ignorant minds. Every thought has a frequency and it can be easily inferred that a society under the influence of ignorance wave will have a low energy level, will be away from creativity ( has higer energy level ) and all forms of human divinity.
But the worst part of spread of ignorance wave is the corruption of a good mind. A good mind is a barrier to bad thoughts ( thoughts of low energy level ) . Under the influence of ignorance waves it is posed with two paths – one is to resist the low energy level thought or to move to a new environment with a mathching energy level as his own( like moving to a better country ). When it tries to resist , subjected to its own will power and the intensity to ignorance wave, it may simply get subjugated and would become a repressed mind then. Repression in long term leads to complete ignorance.
Develpoment of a society ,only and only, depends upon increasing the energy level of people and hence the energy level of society as a whole. So it is very very necessay to take care of a good mind. Because a good mind can alone propagate good ideas. It is the only mind that can raise the energy level of the society. Moreover a ignorant mind ( or any other mind ) has a weird behaviour. When it comes acorss a good thought it becomes less ignorant but more ignorant when it faces a bad thought.
So social development can not really take in India with any concepts of poor or rich or men and women.
This bill is just the continuation of the propagation of the ingnorance wave started long back by Gandhi and his associates.
I would be commenting more on this issue in coming few days
The conclusion of the article you have made is a just a holistic hope out of this bill. No such mechanism is there to ensure that this bill will not be misused. Certainly, this is a firm step taken towards creating a conscious in this male-administrated society. I am sure the bill gonna make its presence out there.
ReplyDeleteThis pings few fundamental questions automatically.
• Why a lady needs Reservation?
• How she lagged during the phase of human development?
• Why she did not retort to the process of conversion of a society with equal rights into this male dominated one?
& most significant
Is she that much equipped in present scenario so that she can use this tool of Reservation in their favor or in the direction of the comprehensive growth of the community?
.”Mera Naam Joker” not a dire film, directed by Raj Kapoor in 1970. Movie was a complete collapse at that point of time. There were many reasons to blame for the same. One among those was the mismatch of the idea of the viewer and director. Perhaps there were fewer viewers to grasp the intensity of the movie. In short, 1970 was not the appropriate time to release that movie.
This thought comes in my mind because I don’t think that this community is equipped enough to utilize the provisions of the bill. If someone wants to make a significant & self achieved progress for this community, he/she need to make them that much competent so that they can understand the need of their participation.
This fact should shift our focus to the grass root improvement of the community. One of the solution can be Skill Development Education to provide them sustainable livelihood, which will make them literate & awakened. It will also provide a sustainable source of their income. Once we have a “Jaagruk Mahila” then we can let any bill flow on the floor otherwise be prepared to welcome a mob of Rabris into the political scenario.
@Rahul
ReplyDeleteYes. That was premeditated, I guess. The bill was only created to serve some political purposes and the checks were intentionally omitted. But, the point is not that the bill will be misused. Bill will certainly be misused, but even that misuse will send few worthy candidates to the fore. And that is the goal which this bill is aiming for.
In 15th Lok Sabha, out of a total of 550 something members, there are only 59 female representatives. It is not the numbers only which we are looking for here. It is the participation which is more important.
At worst, there may be one single woman capable enough to stand in for elections in every smaller city of India? Participation of even one single candidate will propel the numbers greatly in subsequent elections. There lies the significance of the bill.
Education, skill development etc are definitely important, but not important enough to win elections, sadly. So, these are primarily treated as leftover issues by political parties.
Thank you so much for your comments. I was actually waiting for it. I believe a discussion is useless without arguemnts. It is just a way to vefiry one's view and to block loopholes if there are any.
ReplyDelete--you say supporting bill is practicality and thinking otherwise is like idealism, and idealism seems you to be unrealistic ? Don't out think that whatever good things you see around you were once upon a time a dream ? Be it the concept of democracy or a dream of flying in air.
Isn't is this some kind of hopeless , my friend ? Don't you think you are getting miserable ( as a miser ) in your demands and thoughts ?
Somebody said - “practicality is what you practice”. So if I just want to practice what I have been practising then things are practical otherwise I would like to hide in a closet and make an excuse that idealism is not achievable. Does not it sound wierd to you ? Don't you feel the pangs of decadence in it. It's like saying - “ see , fuck off ! I know there are better ways to happen but I can't help much. So the least I can do is hide behind the closet of 'practicality' “. It;'s like walking in a dark forest with a stickin hand and hoping to drive off the tigers and lions. Why ? Because the stick has helped me to drive off catttles before and I just hope that I would be able to use stick even against a tiger. What a weird way to be practical !!!
As you have already pointed out that this is a case of a totally political domain and there is a poor political system where the whole thing can me in a mess.
I believe there are some good things this bill will do. Like reduction in the number of cases of women exploitation. But there are many other things this bill will bring up. The negatives are so heavy against the positives that this bill is going to be a pandora's box., and the whole impact is not going to be obvious untill a decade later. By that time , the society would have already gone far enough and considering the complex nature of Indian society this can have a far reaching ( irreversible ) effects for generations to come.
By now we know what positve things this can do ( lets ignore the negatives ) . Like women upliftment, empowerment .. blah , blah , blah.....
Can we think of an alternative to bring out the same effects without reservation ?
My only point is – Even if the reservation is going to work , lets refrain from applying it. It just not required. Reservation has set up a precedent that this anti-social elem ents of this society can use to further tamper with the ignorant minds.
It is as dangerous as is religion in hands of priests.
@Nitesh
ReplyDeleteNot only this nation, but if you look around, you will find many countries that have long since favoured reservation. We all know why reservation came into being. So, no point discussing about it. Problem is not reservation. Problem is lack of political will of discarding it once it serves its purpose. No political party in India is capable enough to make even a slight modification in the already implemented SC/ST reservation bills. Now, when it has served its purpose, why not modify the bill? Add few clauses of economic well-being, of social stature, etc. Give the benefits to really deprived classes. This riles the public when they see economically and socially well-off people taking benefits of reservation. And, this is what may happen in not so distant future, once women representatives rise in number, and they will start encroaching upon non-reserved seats also.
I do agree that reservation is creating a slight divide in our society. But, reservation is also giving a much needed support to the long deprived and exploited sections of our society. You too will agree that opportunities and resources at disposal are not same for everyone in the society. Some people get more, some get less and some get nothing. Reservation is actually meant to help people who for long, since beginning, has got nothing. What is wrong with providing some helping hand then?
I couldn't actually get the "energy thing" from your post. Pardon me for my ignorance ;
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteQuite informative. I don't have any absolute opinion on the topic. It has always seemed grey to me.
ReplyDeleteReservation was a sin to me some one and a half year back. I interpreted it as some race where people run to come last and unfortunately in India there are many candidates for the race, ofcourse to save themselves from the effort to come first. So come last and reap all the benifits which the first gets.
I happened to visit this village named Ahsana near Jhansi, had a chat with sarpanch, who belonged to two most vulnerable classes particularly in India:
1. She is a female
2. she is dalit.
I asked if becoming sarpanch has made any differnce in her life. She answered in affirmative. She brings up more issues related to devlopment of women in the meetings which is rare in male dominated North Indian patriarchal society. The women in the village also feel change in their status. They feel the part of the governance system.
So, Thumbs up to Women's reservation bill!!
and even I need it, if I want to go back home and stand against the local gundas of eastern UP!
Socialism at its best !!
ReplyDeleteIndia seem to suffers from Emotional blindness. What next in reservation pipeline, my friends ?
There is yet another section of society who have long been deprived of their rights - Eunuchs !
I guess they are next in pipeline.
JAI HO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1.Its better to come up with a solution than criticising a possible solution. It creates another problem. If not reservation, then what? that should be the question and the reservation here is about political representation per se and not a general reservation in all the spheres.
ReplyDelete2. About Eunechs,homosexuals,transexual, minorities and all other sections whose problems have not been incorporated in institutional mechanism, reservation becomes the easiest and the obvious solution.
In that sense, I am not supporting reservation per se but highlighting the need to adress the failure of instituional mechanism.
For a country like ours with problems like poverty, malnutrition, lack of education and numerous others, I don't think we can find any better alternative than socialism.
ReplyDeleteBlindly aping developed world may not be a proper thing always. Capitalism suits them because their normal requirements are taken care of. Everyone there is on equal footings to extract the best for himself from what the system offers. The thing is not the same for us.
Its not about aping anybody.As I have already pointed out that problem cannot be solved unless we come to the level to the problem. Socialism is not india's need. Infact socialism cannot be anybody's need. It only propagates poverty and impoverishment.
ReplyDeleteIt should be easy to understand that in order to solve money problem one must know how to 'generate money' or 'create money'. It appears to be capitalism but that would be very a provincial visualization of the entire scenario.
What this society needs is inventors and discovers and not socialists.This creativity will the basis of genarating money.And in long run this would not be even capitalism. Considering India's long spiritual past, complex social structure and its affinity to peaceful co-existence it can be deduced that adding inventions and discoveries to our arsenal would make us better thinkers, give some freedom from our crap traditions and most importantly some respite from our semi-scientific spirituality.
My observation has been that India's affinity to spirituality is the India's reason for being semi-scientific. The full path needs to traversed by merging this spiritual plane with the scientific experimentation and verification.
Interesting to see was the approach of Mohhammad Yunis in creation of micro-banking system. He did not emphasize charity or socialism. He just lend money and ask people to start some businesses. This was precisely like creating money.
womens reservation is not help any time.womens asked now 33.3 reservation,after ask 50 reservation,ask later 100 reservation.it's always continueos.what is the use for women reservation? this reservation are collapsed our country development economically,education etc.......iam not against to the ladies only against to the women reservation.stop the women resevation
ReplyDelete