The Hindu : Women activists seek 33 p.c. quota

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 22, 2003

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National

Women activists seek 33 p.c. quota

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 21. Not receiving enough support from the political parties for the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in Parliament, women from across the country assembled here today to show unanimity on the issue. Instead, most of them ended up disagreeing with one another and making public their differences.

The much-awaited `stars of the show', the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, and MP, Renuka Choudhary, did not turn up, while Shabana Azmi left without speaking.

So much so, the chairperson, Margaret Alva, intervened and told the participants to abstain from expressing the stand of their political parties to ensure that they reached at a consensus at the end of the day. And, the unanimity ultimately at a seminar on `Women in Legislature' was for 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and the State Assemblies as per the Bill.

"We are meeting here as women activists and not political workers. We know every political party has a different view but we are here with an objective of ensuring reservation for ourselves, whether by amending or changing the Bill," said Ms. Alva, who also chairs the Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women.

Ranjana Kumari of the Joint Action Front for Women, who intervened to pacify the participants, said if they left the hall as a divided house, aspersions would be cast on their unity. "We must leave this place with a solution that can be debated in Parliament and not get sucked into the whirlpool of complexities," she said.

Expressing unhappiness that none of the women parliamentarians had objected when an M.P. had used derogatory language against women in Parliament, the member of the National Commission for Women, Sudha Mallya, said that was the time to show unity by collectively deploring it.

The former member of the National Commission for Women, Anusuya Uikey, suggested formation of a separate all-women political party at the national level until the Bill was passed.

A woman activist, Kamla Nath, suggested that the marshals should remove the MPs who tried to disrupt proceedings when the Women's Reservation Bill was being passed. The seminar was organised by the National Commission for Women.

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