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The Women of the Women’s Reservation Bill

author Indu Agnihotri
Sep 29, 2023
It is women who carried the campaign, asserting democracy at the grassroots and faced the wrath of vested interest across different parts of the country.

This is the second in a two-part series by the author on the women’s reservation Bill. Read the first here.

The Modi-led government may have been under its own compulsions to adopt the women’s reservation Bill with an eye on the next elections but the discussion on the need for reservations for women has a long history.

As is well-known, during the freedom struggle and in the Constituent Assembly, women members vociferously argued against reservation with former Lok Sabha member Renuka Ray decisively stating that “when there is reservation of seats for women, the question of their consideration for general seats, however competent they may be, does not usually arise. We feel that women will get more chances if the consideration is of ability alone.” Reservation, she argued would be ‘an impediment to our growth and an insult to our very intelligence and capacity.’

In the context of the passage of the 128th Amendment, it is important to contextualise the shift in the debate in women’s movement in the post-independence period. 

It was in 1974 that the Committee on the Status of Women in India undertook the most comprehensive review of women’s status since independence. The report made a specific note of the “difficulties being experienced by women in obtaining adequate representation” and the “declining trend in the number of women legislators” which may result in women “losing faith in the political process to change their conditions in life, [and] may opt out of the political system and become either passive partners or rebels.”

However the members of the committee chose not to recommend reservations, prompting two of its members to submit a dissent note. In the note, professors Lotika Sarkar and Vina Mazumdar (the latter was also the member secretary of the committee) pointed out that despite never having been supporters of special representation or class representation in any form, they were compelled to confront the question and disagree with the majority view in the committee because “a political system cannot be based on ideology alone but must keep in touch with the actualities of the social situation and so adjust its operation as to achieve the desired goals of the society. The mechanics of the system, if they do not grapple with the needs of a society, can defeat the ultimate objective in the long run. It is for this reason that we are compelled to dissent from the Committee’s decision on this point.”

These observations facilitated a long term discussion on women’s participation in political bodies with special focus on local bodies. They drew on discussions with regard to the Panchayati Raj system, the principle of financial devolution as part of the governance to advance the principles of federalism and, starting with the Ashok Mehta Committee in 1977, these aspects were the subject of debate in several committees through the 1980s. 

Also read: Between History and Histrionics, the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam

Thus the 1980s saw discussion picking up on both, the aspect of participatory governance at the local level and the absence of women in these processes – the latter pointing to the dissonance between political institutions and the changing aspirations of women as articulated by the resurgent women’s movement. 

The 64th Amendment Bill of 1989 – which could not be passed – reflected the disappointments as well as the contradictions, with the women’s movement rejecting any attempt to be co-opted through a process of nominations to the local bodies. The making of the 73rd and74th amendments to the constitution go back, in part, to this history and the coalescence of diverse factors. These included: the ground observations after reservations for women in the local bodies in Karnataka after the passage of the Karnataka Zilla Parishad, Taluk Panchayat Samithis, Mandal Panchayats and Nyaya Panchayats Act, 1983 which generated interest among women in local bodies. This was followed by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s wish to introduce reservation for women as an acknowledgment of the fact that he owed the massive mandate he received in 1984 to women voters, coupled with policy makers and bureaucrats following up on the recommendations of the CSWI who were instrumental in ensuring the passage of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments for 33% reservation for women in 1992. 

Despite all the cynicism surrounding discussions on the two amendments in the higher echelons of society, the enthusiasm it generated amongst the mass of women was visible and pushed the debate on reservations for women in the higher legislative bodies. 

While these were developments in official quarters, it was the movement’s experience of confronting women’s increased marginalisation that led to their engaging with the demand for increased representation through the legislative process. By the 1990s the challenge for women to assert their constitutional right to be elected was clearly visible against the backdrop of growing criminalisation and the use of muscle and money power in politics. It became even more glaring when electoral battles entered the phase of coalition politics. 

Also read: In Charts: What Women’s Representation in India’s Parliament, Assemblies Looks Like Now

Senior bureaucrat Nirmala Buch, who played no small part in ensuring the passage of these critical amendments, observed that “Myths were created about women’s disinterest and passivity in politics, and about how female relatives of influential politicians from the well-off sections merely occupied these seats while the men were the ones who actually carried out the tasks.” She countered this with data that disproved these stories and documented the work of younger, first time women entrants from economically weaker sections and their participation and performance levels. She drew attention to the challenge of “public patriarchy whereby the women are included but not allowed to participate and their work is consistently undervalued,” and that the women who contested the panchayat elections would not have been able to do so in the absence of reservations. 

For her, the failure to tackle issues of rotation and such matters reflected the lack of serious efforts to “resolve the issue of reservations in the national and state legislatures make it look like a tactic to divert attention from the impasse over the Women’s Reservation Bill.” 

In 1995 women’s organisations issued a clear statement that ‘women’s political participation needs to be encouraged by extending the present reservations in the panchayats’ and demanded ‘at least 33% reservations in the State assemblies and Parliament.’ 

This was issued by seven national organisations: the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), the All India Mahila Dakshata Samiti (AIMDS), All India Women’s Conference (AIWC), Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), Joint Women’s Programme (JWP), The National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), with 99 other organisations from across India supporting the 1995 Declaration of the National Convention of Women in Beijing.

Ahead of the 1996 elections, these seven national organisations made a public appeal to national political parties asking for inclusion in their manifestos a commitment to make necessary amendments to the constitution to ensure a minimum of one third seats to assemblies and parliament for women immediately. Representatives of women’s organisations met leaders of all the national parties, pushing for a debate on the subject, receiving diverse responses. 

Also read: The State, Formally, Remains Male

It was following up on these interventions that the United Front government led by Deve Gowda in 1996 introduced the 81st Constitution Amendment Bill for 33% reservation for women in legislative bodies, steered by Pramila Dandavate. This Bill was referred to a Parliament Select Committee, popularly referred to as the Geeta Mukherjee Committee. Women’s organisations followed up their efforts with a meeting and a memorandum to the committee in November 1996. The subsequent history of the various versions of the Bill is well documented, including the reference to a second Parliamentary Committee on Law and Justice in 2008. 

What is not sufficiently recognised is the persistent efforts by the movement to gather support from different political parties. They engaged in continuous debate on the significance of the figure of 33% – considered necessary for a critical mass to make a difference – on the question of quota within quota, proxies and debates arising from restrictions brought according to the two-child norm in the People’s Representation Act and their gender implications, as well as the backlash elected women faced for standing their ground in the local bodies. 

Women’s organisations have, over the last three decades, sustained a debate on all aspects and maintained that the Bill needs to be brought to parliament to allow for a constructive debate on all aspects. There is hardly any constitutional authority that the organisations did not approach in these decades to push for a debate, even as there was a raging debate within the movement with regard to quotas and clauses for sub-reservation. 

‘Let the debate happen on the floor of the House’ was the constant refrain from the movement even as parties scuttled this very debate in the name of a ‘lack of consensus.’ The strength to persist with the demand has largely come from the enthusiasm amongst the mass of women based on the experiences of working with the 73rd-74th amendments. 

It is these women who have carried the campaign, asserting democracy at the grassroots, facing the wrath of vested interests all across different states, apart from the cynicism surrounding the dismissive references to proxies and panch patis (a term coined for husbands of elected leaders) in the upper echelons. These years have seen a movement on the ground as well as a petition in the court in 2011 for implementation of the 33% reservation for women in urban local bodies in Nagaland after the state government opposed implementation and application of the law citing customary laws.

Today, as the debate goes on about the need for mechanisms to make the legislation inclusive in terms of women from specifically marginalised groups and communities, it may be worthwhile to recall what the two pioneers of women’s studies in India, Sarkar and Mazumdar, pointed out in their dissent note, “When one applies the principle of democracy to a society characterised by tremendous inequalities, such special protections are only spearheads to pierce through the barriers of inequality. An unattainable goal is as meaningless as a right that cannot be exercised. Equality of opportunities cannot be achieved in the face of the tremendous disabilities and obstacles which the social system imposes on all those sections whom traditional India treated as second class or even third class citizens.” 

Indu Agnihotri is a retired professor and former director of Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi.

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