A shocking betrayal

By Jayanthi Natarajan

THE LAST day of the winter session of Parliament saw total betrayal of women of this country. In case this thought be dismissed as ranting hyperbole, I would like to question the credentials of a system of parliamentary democracy that does not allow even a discussion of a law which will make so much difference to the lives of women who form half of the country's population. It is not just certain political parties that blocked the Women's Reservation Bill, the NDA Government did a volte-face and reneged on its commitment to get it passed in this session.

The people have witnessed the disgraceful behaviour of certain members who publicly stated they would physically prevent the discussion on the Bill and then proceeded to do so, with not even a token protest from other members allegedly supportive of the Bill. The scene on the last two days of the Lok Sabha looked uncannily orchestrated, as the Bill was ritualistically listed, evoked a ritualistic protest and the House ritualistically (and speedily) adjourned.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) did what was expected of them, for this was after all their public position on the matter. This time, however, the NDA showed its true colours. It is now clear the Government never had any intention of passing the Bill. Despite repeated demands from women MPs and women's groups, it only listed the Bill for a discussion on the last working day (Fridays are reserved for private member's resolutions). Right through the session, when we trudged from door to door, meeting senior Cabinet Ministers and requesting them to ensure an early discussion of the Bill, we got only disquieting and ominous signals of procrastination.

All the talk about ``building up a consensus'' on the Bill is nothing more than bunkum. After all, the Government does not attempt to reach a consensus on levying taxes, or on the WTO, or the agriculture policy or even on a matter so vital to our economy as globalisation. Therefore, the sudden spirit of accommodation and sweet reasoning on the part of the Government makes it obvious that this ploy is merely a tactic to delay matters and evade the issue.

The fraudulent nature of the consensus argument stands further exposed when it is remembered that the issue has been discussed since September 11, 1996. The Women's Bill was then referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee, headed by the late Geeta Mukherjee, which submitted its report to Parliament on December 9, 1996. The Bill as recommended by the Committee was brought before the Lok Sabha for consideration in May 1997, July 1998, December 1998 and finally introduced, amid great drama by the then Union Minister, Mr. Ram Jethmalani, on December 23, 1999. It is incomprehensible what further consensus the Government hopes to achieve. The issue has been discussed threadbare for over four years, and all that remains to be done is to pass the Bill and make it law. It seems that it would admirably suit the posturing of parties to keep trotting out increasingly implausible inanities to further delay the Bill.

On the last day of the session, the Prime Minister, during his astonishing and uncharacteristic display of temper towards the Leader of the Opposition, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, also let the cat out of the bag. What he said was what the Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, had said the previous day and what NDA leaders had been privately saying for weeks. Basically, the deal was: forget the Women's Bill in its present form and consider, instead, the so- called alternative Bill suggested by the Election Commission.

The Commission's proposal has come at an inopportune time, giving the Government a loophole to weasel out of its commitment to pass the Bill. The Bill proposed by the Commission will not ensure representation of women in Parliament (or the State Assemblies). To achieve a token compliance with the requirement of 33 per cent tickets to women (if such a Bill is passed), the parties will simply put up women in constituencies that are unwinnable or have been rejected by men as unsuitable. Even if this were not true, another major problem would remain. In a general constituency, women candidates simply cannot match the money and muscle power with which men dominate an election. In this unequal battle, the token women candidates will lose and the precentage of women who actually make it to Parliament will stagnate at the same level, thereby rendering useless the very object of the legislation.

The Election Commission and writers like Ms. Madhu Kishwar have pointed out that in the past the overall success rate of women in elections was better than that of men. In other words, women candidates have proved more successful than their male counterparts. However, this does not in any way imply that men and women are on an equal footing in the fray. The women who fought and won elections in the past are too few in number to predicate upon them a theory of success and in any case, they are not typical of the average Indian woman.

The Chief Election Commissioner, Dr. M. S. Gill, has talked about studies which proved that the ``winnability'' of women is over 50 per cent higher than that of men and based on this reckoning, even if 20 per cent women (out of 33 per cent fielded by parties?) make it to Parliament, there will be 120 to 150 of them. The logic of this argument is difficult to sustain for, it would have been impossible to conduct any meaningful study of the winnability of women based upon the woefully inadequate number of women who contested in the past 50 years. Secondly, the majority of the women who have thus far fought the elections usually came from privileged or powerful backgrounds and were thus less handicapped in facing powerful male opponents. Therefore, it would be totally inappropriate to compare the ``winnability'' of these women to the potential of an average grass root party worker without powerful backing.

The further argument in some quarters that rotation of seats, arising out of reservation for women, will result in injustice to the existing members and they will therefore lose interest in nurturing their constituencies is blatantly violative of the basic tenets of accountability. It would be undemocratic in the extreme to link the nurturing of a constituency with a member's vested interest to continue there in perpetuity. By any standard of democratic behaviour, elected representatives are expected to properly nurture their constituencies for the precise reason they are elected by the people, and are not hereditary zamindars.

The demand for reservation of seats for women has arisen because of the abysmal track record of political parties and the highly improbable prospect of their being sincerely committed to this measure in the future. This is not to suggest, however, that a law mandating that parties give 33 per cent of their tickets to women should not be passed. On the contrary, such a law would be a welcome move, provided it is not meant to replace or substitute the proposed Constitutional Amendment seeking to reserve seats in legislatures for women.

In the final analysis, it is clear that most parties are actually against the Women's Bill, notwithstanding their pious public posturing. If the SP, the RJD and the Samata were genuinely committed to their loudly proclaimed objective of ensuring reservation within reservation for OBC women, nothing prevented them from bringing in amendments to the proposed legislation. Everybody would have supported them, their objective would have been realised and the Women's Bill passed. However, despite our personal pleas, Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav was adamant that his party would not move the very amendments it was allegedly fighting for, but that the Government should do it. Thereafter members from the SP, the Samata and the RJD physically prevented a discussion on the Bill in Parliament.

However, the behaviour of these parties was entirely predictable. It was the deceitful and shocking betrayal by the NDA Government that has stunned the women. It is obvious that despite the various disingenuous alternatives now being offered, the NDA Government has absolutely no intention of implementing 33 per cent reservation of seats for women in the legislatures. It is time now for women to resort to direct and more dynamic action in order to safeguard their constitutional rights.

(The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP.)

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : An inevitable tariff hike
Next     : Swadeshi, not just a sentiment