India’s Crisis of Governance: The Women’s Perspective
Authors: Ramaswamy Sushila 
Published: November 2008

Post Independent India adopted democracy patterned on the British parliamentary system based on universal adult franchise. That India is a practicing democracy is one of its major achievements. However, one must not be oblivious to the incompleteness of this democratic enterprise, as women who constitute nearly half of the population occupy less than 10% of parliamentary seats. In 1971, a committee on the Status of Women was appointed to dissect the position of women. The report of the committee, entitled Towards Equality published in 1974, concluded that women’s impact in politics is marginal even though numerically they are the single largest minority. The committee proposed that each political party set a quota for women candidates as a remedial measure. As a transitional measure, it recommended a Constitutional amendment for reserving seats for women in municipal councils and panchayats, and that was done by the 73rd and 74th amendments in 1992. However, at the national level the Women Reservation Bill continues to be mired in controversy and inaction.

In view of the serious opposition to the bill the then Chief Election Commissioner in 1999 and some Members of the Parliament suggested that instead of amending the Constitution to ensure 33% of seats for women by rotation, the same could be achieved by a simple change in the Representation of People’s Act. Party wise representation has been the method by which most political parties globally have ensured greater representation of women in their national legislatures. However, in India, no political party, and even those who favour the tabling the Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament has initiated steps towards this direction in spite of their commitment to women’s reservation.

This proves that empowering women continues to be an elusive problem. Women find token representation in the political sphere and that the public domain, though not exclusively a male preserve, is surely dominated by men. There are two sides to the maleness of politics. At one level, there is the traditional patriarchal notion where politics is in the nature of a patron client relationship paralleling the father-son relationship. As a result of this, women are excluded from the material benefits that politics accrues and even if they inherit the political office, it is usually due to the absence of a male member. The other male aspect of politics is fraternalism seeing political experiences as expressing brotherhood of men.

The experiences of different methods of representation confirm the view that the best way to ensure proper representation of women and other disadvantaged segment of society is the proportional representation system. However, within the limitations of first-past-the-post system that India follows, significant advancement is possible if all political parties widen their present narrow social base and secure wider representation of the under-represented and under-privileged. However, since the mainstream political parties are either unwilling or incapable to move in this positive direction the only option is a time bound state directed quota system that would immediately rectify this imbalance and prepare the society for more corrective measures in the future.