India has a shamefully low number of female politicians. It's high time that changed
Many women stand as independent candidates in elections because political parties deny them tickets.
From Indira Gandhi to Jayalalithaa to Sushma Swaraj and Nirmala Sitharaman today — India has had and continues to have several prominent women in politics. Voter turnout data also shows that the number of women at polling booths on election days is on par with men.
But problems of representation still persist.
Nearly half the population of India is women — but only 9 per cent of the Members of Legislative Assembly and Members of Parliament, considered together, are women.
So, what's going wrong and what can be done?
"When there's a discussion happening in Parliament on GST [Goods and Services Tax] rates for sanitary napkins, the surrogacy regulation Bill or rape laws in the nation, it would be good to have women representatives", says Tara Krishnaswamy, the co-convener of the India Women's Caucus (IWC). "Policy will be framed in an ad hoc fashion if women don't have appropriate representation."
The statement about ad hoc policies is also evident from the recent protests staged by UP's women civil servants where sexist laws concerning leave policy came under fire. And recognising such needs, the India Women's Caucus (IWC) was formed.
IWC is the nation's first non-partisan forum to enable women to get into political office at both the state and national levels.
The first event of the forum was held in Goa, leading to the formation of the Goa state chapter of the IWC, while a second — a more large-scale event — was held in Bangalore on December 8 with women attendees ranging from current politicians from both the right and left wing parties and political aspirants to members of student bodies of national political parties, activists and journalists. The motive was to foster conversations about women as political leaders and further the candidature of those women who aim for political careers.
Now called Shakti, the caucus has five key aims.
One: To build a non-partisan, national movement to demand political power for women.
Two: To launch Shakti in Delhi, the capital city, by February 2019 and kick-start state-level units.
Three: To garner public support to pressurise political parties to commit towards having at least 50 per cent women candidates — this is already under process by way of petitioning.
Four: To promote women candidates in the upcoming 2019 elections
Five: To enable the passage of the Women's Representation Assurance Policy in the Winter Session of the Lok Sabha, which is currently underway.
The caucus addresses a dire need. And while many political parties include the Women's Reservation Bill (WRB) in their manifestos and create noise around this during election campaigns, party tickets are ultimately handed over largely to male candidates.
The reluctance to give tickets to women candidates and express faith in them was evident in the recent legislative elections too, where Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh experienced a dip in female representation owing to the manner of distribution of tickets. In Mizoram, the Indian National Congress (INC) gave one ticket to a women candidate and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gave six out of a total of forty. And in Telangana, women candidates were largely ignored — even when they were provided tickets, it was for seats where the party had little chance of winning.
"Many women stand as independent candidates in elections because political parties deny them tickets and these women are usually called 'rebel candidates'. In India, independent candidates barely get votes," Krishnaswamy explained. "This is disturbing because many women have political ambitions, as is evident from the lakhs of women party workers in the various women's wings of all major political parties."
About two weeks ago, the caucus urged the public to call their respective Members of Parliament, asking for the passage of the WRB. As a result of this exercise, 127 MPs from 23 parties, including the BJP and the INC, across 21 states said 'yes' to the Bill, confirming their support.
This was unprecedented because all the MPs were contacted on a single day when they were in Delhi and Parliament was in session.
It is important to note that the Bill is a lapsed one because the Lok Sabha never voted on it following its passage in the Rajya Sabha in 2010. "This shows the lack of political will because the ruling party that had the Bill in their manifesto has a majority in Parliament. When laws concerning Aadhar, complicated Acts like the GST and controversial Bills like Triple Talaq could be passed, why not the women's reservation Bill?" Krishnaswamy asks. "This validates the existence of Shakti."
As the next step, Shakti aims to ramp up pressure on political parties to provide tickets to women candidates in the upcoming 2019 elections, in addition to sustaining the pressure for the passage of the WRB.