Women Reservation Bill

The Central Government has introduced a bill to provide 1/3rd reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies for a period of 15 years, which gives a clear indication that it's with the purpose to improve women's participation in democratic setup of our country.

Arjun Ram Meghwal, the Union Minister of Law and Justice, introduced the Bill(Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam) in the Lok Sabha and stated that, if it is approved, it will increase the number of female MPs in the House from the current strength of 82 to 181 out of 543 total MPs. The descriptive details of that are as follows:

 28 out of 84 seats reserved for SCs women.

16 out of 47 seats reserved for STs women.

137 seats will be reserved for general category women. 

Before going to the descriptive part of it, let's have a look at the provisions of the Constitution it will put effects on.

Article 239AA provides for a legislative assembly for National Capital Territory so here it will be in effect providing reservation.

Article 330 provides for reservation of STs, SCs in the house of people (Lok Sabha) where out of reserved seats for them 1/3rd will be reserved from women by providing a new clause. 

Article 332 provides for reservation of STs, SCs in the State legislative assembly where out of reserved seats for them 1/3rd will be reserved from women by providing a new clause.

Article 334 provides that the reservation of seats and special representation cease after some time, where provisions of reserving seats for women will be provided for 15 years. Although as of now it is subject to further census and delimitation, which will be done after 2026 as per 84th Constitutional Amendment Act 2002, date of next census is still under veil.

It's not the first time where this kind of bill providing reservation for women has been introduced but in September 1996 in 11th Lok Sabha it has been introduced followed by December 1998(12th Lok Sabha), December 1999(13th Lok Sabha), May 2008 in Rajya Sabha even passed on 9th March 2010 but with the re-election of new Lok Sabha it will be fossilized in 2014.

Although it is being re-introduced approximately 9 years after being defunct is also a matter to consider. 

Is it just patriarchy which will be the reason for any opposition to this bill? 

Directly it will not be the sole reason but the other will be the result of patriarchy itself. The other reason for opposing this will be the absence of the number of female candidates to actually file nomination in any reserved seats with national and local parties. And leaders can’t be evident all of sudden so how effective this will be in the short run is a matter to think upon. 

If representation of women is important in the house of people then why not in the Council of states?

Even we have reservation for women in grassroot level of democracy where it frequently seen that generally male member of the family is politically active throughout and if that seat is declared reserved for women, he will put his wife, mother, sister or daughter as a candidate and campaign with them, even the posters of advertisement includes photo of the politically active male member with name and relation with the female candidate. Is this the kind of representation we want ? How will this kind of women participation be beneficial? The worst part is that sometimes the male member attends some official meeting or meeting and listens to different issues after the winning of that female candidate. This is one of the issues to be addressed, this is just giving a hoax of female participation and representation.   

                                            Here in the above poster women is the candidate with lower size of photo and with her husband 

Although we are country of great women like Rani Lakshmi bai, Ahilyabai Holkar, Sarojini Naidu, Aruna Asaf Ali, Savitribai Phule,  Anandi Gopal Joshi, Sucheta Kripalani, Lakshmi Sahgal, Begum Hazrat Mahal, Kamla Nehru,Vijay Laxmi Pandit, Madam Bhikaji Cama, Lakshmi Sahgal, Usha Mehta,  Kamla Chattopadhyay………… this list is almost endless taking inspiration from we need representation of women to make our society inclusive and all-encompassing. Hoping that with this reservation and from next Lok Sabha and Legislative assemblies demands like maternity leave in all sector of work, issues of pay gap between men and women,  strict actions on honour crimes, guaranteeing absence other basic health related issues like sexual and reproductive right, female genital mutilation, poor status of women in marriage.