Some thought on women's quota bill

By Neera Chandhoke

THE IRRESPONSIBLE and rather cavalier way in which the male members of our political class have either dismissed or shortchanged the Women's Reservation Bill is irritating at best and obnoxious at worst. Because, such attitudes not only exhibit a callousness and amorality, they demonstrate a profound lack of understanding. In other words, the opponents of the bill have simply not comprehended either the logic of the demand or even the thinking that informs the demand.

We would do well to recollect that the demand for this bill has not been made in a theoretical or political vacuum. Neither is it a bid for power by upper class and upper caste women, which is what our representatives who have themselves come to power on the issue of reservation for the OBCs would like us to believe.

For, behind the demand for women's representation in Parliament and the State Assemblies lies an entire body of thinking; thinking that has emerged out of experience of the unpalatable reality in India and other parts of the world. In other words, four significant and thoughtful shifts in the way we conceive of an activity called politics have given rise to the demand.

The first relates to the way we think of justice. It has been assumed for long that if we put in place fair and just procedures for taking decisions, the decisions which emerge from such procedures will possess the virtue of justice. If we, for instance, institutionalise a fair electoral system based on universal adult franchise and the principle of one person one vote, the outcome of the election will be just, simply because it has been conducted fairly. It does not matter who of the candidates we have voted is elected, because he or she has been elected according to fair and just procedures. This is what can be called an `outcome-neutral' concept of procedural justice, because we concentrate on the processes and not on the outcome.

The problem is that procedures, howsoever fair and just, simply do not function properly in a society that is unequal and hierarchical. Just look at the kind of representatives thrown up by our electoral system. Considering the record of our decision- making bodies, it becomes quite clear that the laws that have emanated from these bodies have proved simply inadequate when it comes to the needs of the weaker sections - the oppressed among Dalits, women or the disabled.

Given the composition of the legislatures all these years, it is not surprising that none of the basic problems affecting women - landlessness, domestic violence, lack of control over decisions and, above all, female infanticide - has been addressed seriously by our majestic law-making bodies. Prof. Amartya Sen has spoken of all those missing women in India. Where, we can ask, have they gone? Killed at birth? Died of malnutrition or because of rape or domestic violence? We may have institutionalised fair systems for the election of legislators but these representatives have simply proved themselves unequal to the task. Fair procedural justice has not led to outcomes that are either fair or just.

All this has led theorists to believe that we need an `outcome- regarding' conception of justice. In this conception, we pay attention not only to fair procedures but also to outcomes. Therefore, if women are not represented in the legislatures because of wider structures of patriarchy, we will have to reserve seats for them. We have to reserve seats for them much as we have to reserve seats for the weaker sections among the Dalits, simply because the wider context of elections, that is patriarchal society, is so palpably unfair and unjust.

The second shift has occurred in theories of representation. It is not as if women have not occupied seats in the legislatures; it is simply that they have not addressed the questions which pertain to the problems of women adequately, seriously or with sensitivity. Had they done so, we would not have had all these missing women or illiteracy or hunger or homelessness or violence both at home and at the work place. The demand behind the Women's Reservation Bill is that women representatives should address the specific problems of their constituency. The issue, let it be said, is not only representation of women in the decision-making bodies; the issue is that of accountability to the constituency. I should add that any adequate theory of representation recognises that the representatives have to be accountable to the least advantaged women - the Dalit, landless woman, for instance, who is triply oppressed by class, caste and gender.

The third shift in political thinking relates to theories of citizenship. For long, the citizen has been conceptualised abstractly as someone who holds rights that are common to all. This bearer of rights or the citizen, note, has no name, no gender, no caste and no class. It has now been recognised that universal rights alone do not serve the least advantaged in a deeply inegalitarian society. For instance, the rights to land do not mean anything in a society where women have traditionally been excluded from inheritance of property. Because our society is unequal, different sections of citizens need different rights that address their specific condition, in addition to universal rights. Therefore, women need special rights to guard their person and their dignity. An unequal society, in short, needs differentiated rights which address the problems of weaker sections.

The fourth shift has to do with the expansion of the idea of political. Too long the political has been conceptualised as something people do in the public sphere of politics and the market. By this definition, the household has been considered outside the domain of the political and hence outside the sphere of political interventions. But as feminists have told us the household is a microcosm of the political because it is stamped with the relations of power that deny to women their rights. The women's movement has through constant struggle placed issues pertaining to the household - marital rape, violence, injustices that have been wreaked on the girl child and denial of property rights - on the political agenda. These issues have now to be negotiated seriously and with some measure of commitment. This is the logic behind the demand for women's representation.

Two additional points have to be made. A just democratic society has to ensure that people are self-governing inasmuch as they have control over decisions which affect them deeply. It is only then that we will have fuller and richer human beings. Women have been denied self-government because they have no control over their bodies, labour and income in a patriarchal society. Therefore, they have been diminished as human beings. And this violates all norms of democracy and justice. It is time we began to think seriously of the effects of all these irresponsible policies born of patriarchy upon those who are systematically deprived of their rights and of justice. Perhaps committed women legislators will be able to deliver what their male counterparts have failed to deliver in India. Let us at least try.

Finally, and this is a point that is addressed to the defenders of the Women's Reservation Bill. No struggle of and for the underprivileged can be carried out in a vacuum; it has to link up and make common cause with the struggles of the least advantaged - the homeless, the hungry, the oppressed, the disabled. Only then can we even envisage the possibility of a social transformation through recognition of human rights - the right to be human.

These four shifts in thinking will pre-empt any bid for power by well-heeled women as Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mr. Amar Singh of the Samajwadi Party ostensibly fear, because the very logic of political representation for the least advantaged women will prevent misuse of power. Women, once they are granted reservation in Parliament, will have to address the problems of the least advantaged in their constituency. They have no choice. Are the opponents of the bill listening?

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