The Hindu : Women activists court arrest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 17, 2003

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Women activists court arrest

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 16. Activists of several women's organisations courted arrest outside the Parliament House here today protesting the failure of the political parties to support the Women's Reservation Bill.

Over 300 activists were taken into custody when the all-party meeting on women's Bill was going on. They sent a memorandum to the Lok Sabha Speaker, Manohar Joshi, who chaired the meeting, appealing to him to support their cause.

"The Bill has been pending since 1996. This is in spite of the fact that there is an existing consensus in support of the Bill that in terms of numbers of votes is sufficient for the adoption of a constitutional amendment,'' the memorandum said.

The onus was on the NDA Government to utilise the two-thirds support given by several parties — both from the Opposition and from the ruling alliance — and put the Bill to vote in the coming session of Parliament. The women's groups called upon the women voters to "think twice'' before voting for the parties which had opposed the Bill.

The activists belonged to All-India Democratic Women's Association, the Joint Women's Programme, the Young Women's Christian Association of India, CWDS, JAC, MDS, the Muslim Women's Forum, NFIW, Guild of Service and JMS.

Meanwhile, there were strong reactions from various political parties to the all-party meet with the Congress sticking to its stand of passing the Bill in its present form and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance announcing that there would be no problem in garnering support for the Bill on whatever proposal acceptable to all parties was put forward by the Speaker, though the Government would place the Bill in the Lok Sabha for discussion only if there was unanimity. "We will place the Bill in its present, amended or new form only after there is a consensus,'' the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, told reporters after the meeting.

The BJP representative at the meeting, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, said his party was ready to accept the Bill in its present form or accept the suggestion of the Election Commission to let the political parties nominate women candidates or even increase the number of seats to accommodate women.

The Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, said he was opposed to the Bill in its present form as it was "unconstitutional". "We cannot have reservation for women at the cost of men. After reservation for women, men are left with only 22 per cent of the seats,'' he said, adding that the concept of rotation was against the basic spirit of the Constitution that stressed the relation between the voter and the representative. His party could support the Bill if the percentage of reservation for women was reduced from 33 per cent to 20 or 15 per cent.

Strongly condemning the Government's "attitude", the CPI (M) Parliamentary Party leader, Somnath Chatterjee, said the Government had the adequate numbers to pass the Bill if it so desired. However, it was shying away from doing so because it was not sure of the support of its own allies.

The Telugu Desam Party leader, K. Yerran Naidu, said his party had no objection to a quota within reservation but oppose the Election Commission suggestion as it was not "workable". "We only have to create reservation for women under the law,'' he said.

Expressing disappointment over the outcome of today's meeting, the chairperson of the National Commission, Purnima Advani, said women would not accept anything less than 33 per cent because in all other situations they would be at a loss.

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