JUST as in the early part of the 20th century with respect to the ‘depressed classes’, political thinkers now agree on the need for greater presence of women in elected bodies. The point of divergence is: how do we bring about the desired change? Hidden in our agreements and disagreements are the reasons for which we want this change in the first place. Further, we have varying conceptions of what is possible and workable in the political landscape of India. The partial sympathies of political agents flounder when confronting baleful vested interests.

In this situation, making connections with experiments taking place worldwide widens our horizon of thinking, even as we carefully analyse local experiences. We need an informed and constructive debate that uncovers the hidden, that puts the local in the global context and aligns intent with offer. This contribution is another move in that direction.¹

With clearer articulation of the underlying themes that divide us, we might find potential convergence on the ideas of the legitimacy of representation of women as a group, the problem of defining inclusiveness in a democracy, the question of reliance on ‘top-down’ state support for bringing about political reform and the general difficulty of assessing the efficacy of proposed political measures, institutional or otherwise. Historically, the accepted story now is that our heroines of Indian independence were reluctant to support any affirmative action, and that the theoretical roots of the present tension between demands for women’s rights and caste-based rights lie in that troubled past. There is a need for ‘linking – rather than opposing – women’s rights to rights based on caste, class or minority status…’ (John 2008).

On the philosophical plane, the very idea of representation comes under scrutiny. If the elected represent ideas of people they represent then there is no reason why men should not represent women’s ideas. In this sense of representation women are not any more under-represented than any other group whose ideas do not get a fair hearing. Even if women have distinct interests and/or needs, it is argued that men should in principle be able to voice them. However, Anne Phillips (1995) reminded us that women cannot really expect ‘the degree of vigorous advocacy that people bring to their own concerns’, for which the presence of women in elected assemblies is the key. But not all agree on how to bring this about. The sceptical voice of Nivedita Menon (2000) warns of the misappropriation by the state of the legitimacy built by women activists. Shireen Rai (1999) points out the alleged ‘inherently undemocratic nature’ of any quota policy. She does not, however, challenge the conception of democracy underpinning this criticism of quotas.

On Rai’s argument that affirmation of women’s distinct status on its own would not be a ‘real’ benefit if not accompanied by transformation, I have my doubts about the opposition between affirmation and transformation. Is the one not always accompanied by the other? The two sides of the opposition are not fixed as it is assumed in arguments for bypassing affirmative strategies. The symbolic processes of culture are not separate from the material processes of political economy.

As Iris Young emphasises, ‘recognition’ (the overt aim of affirmative strategies) is often demanded for the ‘sake of redistribution’ (the overt aim of transformative strategies) (Young 1997, 2000). Rai relies on the views of Nancy Fraser (1995, 1997) that ‘transformative remedies’ must be contrasted with ‘affirmative remedies for injustice, which alter end-state patterns of distribution and recognition without disturbing the underlying framework.’ This presupposes that there is some recalcitrant ‘underlying framework’. In my view, the metaphoric divisions between apparent/real, surface/depth, superficial/underlying and, of course, affirmative/transformative must be reconsidered.

 

In Dhanda (2000) my main aim was to change the focus of the discussion from a preoccupation with the consequences of instituting a policy of gender quotas to a deeper understanding of what it means to ‘engender’ democratic political participation and to act in solidarity with women. I attempted to clear the theoretical ground to foster a genuine dialogue amongst different viewpoints claiming to speak on behalf of women. It was not my claim that consequences are irrelevant, but simply that they are inconclusive. Public policies that are insensitive to the identity concerns of people undermine conditions of genuine reciprocity and thereby destroy the possibility of a politics of solidarity.

It is important to think about ‘identity concerns’ also, to tackle the vexed problem of negotiating the identities of women from lower/backward castes and minorities, with a view to empower them. My earlier speculation that the praxis of elected women in local bodies would make them more likely to support gender quotas in the Parliament now appears to be confirmed (Lama-Rewal 2008).

 

Before homing in on available field research on the praxis of women in local bodies, let us take a look at the global picture to locate India on the map of women parliamentarians. A cursory glance at published data on women in Parliament worldwide raises several questions regarding many of the usual generalisations made about factors affecting women’s presence (IPU 2008). The oft-cited regional experience of Nordic countries needs to be compared with recent institutional changes in countries such as South Africa and Mexico. On average, women account for 16 per cent of the world’s parliamentary representatives. Many highly industrialised countries fall well below this average. Japan and Russia are stark examples, with the United States barely hitting the mark. Britain, teetering just above the world average, is way behind Cuba, Argentina and South Africa. Surely, economic development is not the key to women’s greater participation in the Parliament.

India happens to be on the lowest rungs (world ranking 108) with only 8.3 per cent women in Parliament. It is admirably surpassed by its much-maligned neighbours Pakistan² and China, just below Pakistan, but both higher than the world average. So, is greater democratisation not directly linked to women’s greater presence? The complexity of a polity, such as one brought about by caste- divisions or religion, also does not seem to be a decisive factor when we compare India’s low position to the greater share for women in equally multicultural Indonesia (IPU 2008).

 

A combination of factors ranging from economic development, poverty, democratisation, multi-cultural complexity to the presence or absence of an egalitarian culture, the extent of women’s education and professional achievements and the range of the inequality gap, are implicated in the causes for women’s low average amongst parliamentary representatives worldwide. The local context with its particularities and exigencies determines which combination of these globally identified factors is most likely to influence women’s prospects. In India, the relevant particular context of women’s political activity includes the restructuring of the panchayati raj institutions and the local municipal corporations, the deeply caste-divided polity and the ‘personalized, patronage- and status-oriented’ (Fleschenberg 2005) features of politics common to South and Southeast Asia.

We now have the findings of some research on what women have done ‘as women’ when in power at the local level. We know that women want to move to state-legislatures, despite hurdles obstructing their progress in the shape of no-confidence motions, adverse caste sentiments, trickery and non-cooperation (Pegu 1999). Notwithstanding obstacles, the number of women contesting every seat in the second round of elections has on average doubled. Should things be left as they are? Should one wait to see the osmotic effect of this enthusiasm of the new women policy-makers and hope that further legislative steps are rendered redundant?

 

In her work on women in the Calcutta municipal corporation, Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal (2008) found that given the opportunity women councillors would consider contesting at the state assembly level: ‘89 per cent of the women interviewed expressed their readiness to go further into their political career.’ Reservations have produced an ‘opportunity effect’ as women have contested as independents in the second round of elections. The reserved wards have also facilitated greater visibility of women candidates and women party workers: ‘more and more women actually contest – and win – against male opponents’ (ibid. 237).

However, she reports that the agenda of the house did not change as a result of women’s presence in CMC, a finding at odds with what Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2003) report from their village level research in two districts, Birbhum in West Bengal and Udaipur, in Rajasthan. The latter show that ‘women invest more in goods that are relevant to the needs of local women’ and also challenge the scepticism that women or Scheduled Castes (SCs) are not capable of being independent leaders. According to their results, ‘Despite the handicaps they may face in terms of education and prior experience, and the preconception of weak leadership, women have a real impact on policy decisions.’ Duflo (2005) argues that although reservation ‘brings to power a group of relatively inexperienced and less-educated politicians, there is no evidence that this comes at the expense of the quality of decision making.’ She recommends reservation as a ‘powerful redistributive tool’.

There is another side to the story of women councillors. They complained of lack of respect, and of the dual burden of household and political duties; some women even lost their wages because employers were reluctant to give jobs to a ‘sarpanch’ or even an ex-sarpanch (Geetha 2008). Their assertion of independent ways of working and protracted resistance to misuse of power by upper-caste men has been met with horrific violence in some cases, especially those involving dubious land deals. Dalit women panches have had a very hard time due to upper-caste networking against them. Amongst the success stories are Muslim women in Kerala’s panchayats, totalling 300 across the district, who ‘were becoming bold, assertive and ready to take on the injustice of their male controlled world.’³

 

Now there remains the question of evaluating the different measures suggested by participants in the current debate. De facto, there is the government’s Women’s Reservation Bill. The other three in the fray are the Alternative Bill (Kishwar et al) or the ‘Election Commission’ proposal as it has come to be known, dual-member constituencies in a third of the total seats (Nanivadekar 2003), and a suggestion that I have endorsed to double the number of seats in the Parliament (Dhanda 2008).

One signatory of the Alternative Bill rehearses some of her arguments based on assertions that women ‘will lack the legitimacy and opportunity needed to prove their ability and acceptability. Leadership acquired in such a manner will be seen as unnatural, artificial and foisted’ (Kishwar 1996). But we have now learnt from the experience of women elected by reservation in local government that a number of women have proved their ability through their work and thereby earned the confidence of the electors to contest and win in the second round even from non-reserved seats. I think that the bogie of a legitimacy deficit quite unnecessarily weighs down the ‘Alternative Bill’. Objections to this bill have come from the right as well as the left (Karat 2003).

 

Further, the Alternative Bill recommends the use of party lists. Closed party lists in the South African experience led to ‘women’s quiescence because allegiance is owed to the political party which placed the woman high on its list rather than the voter’ (Vincent 2004: 78). Comparably, based on a survey of a sample of 15 women MPs out of the 39 in the 1991-1996 Indian Parliament, Rai (2002) finds that ‘all the MPs questioned made clear, they are "party women first"; the party whip is rarely flouted.’⁴

The punitive measure suggested in case a party does not field the mandated percentage of women candidates on their lists is not at all realistic. Besides the impossibility of determining justly which two male candidates should lose their party symbol when the party errs, the enforcement of such a penalty would vest far too much power in the Election Commission. It is intriguing that the urge for democracy has not tempered the suggestion of the Forum to rely so much on the enhanced role of an unelected body. Nonetheless, some proposals for embedding the bill in wider electoral reforms, such as the requirement to field election expenses, are entirely welcome. The focus on party nomination practices is also very sensible.

 

Rotation of constituency for reservation for women has been the bone of contention between proposed alternatives and the supporters of WRB. Let us note that in some countries representatives are not allowed to hold two terms consecutively, and that does not hinder their accountability. It seems to me that there is no necessary link between accountability and the number of terms an incumbent can hope to serve. When the same people get re-elected, they might make and break the same promises again; peoples’ criticism of their failures could get further muted for fear of facing the wrath of the politician in power yet again. For new entrants to politics, however, it might be argued that more stability in office is necessary, which rotation upsets. In sum, I think that an alternative that eschews rotation is worth devising.

Enforcement of legislation for party quotas is a tricky business. Methods of enforcement can range from rejection of party lists failing to meet the mandatory quota (as in Mexico) to fines for non-compliance (as in France). The implementation of French Parity legislation has been uneven, as financial penalties for non-compliance are calculatedly brooked by political parties and individuals (Stokes 2005: 87). What the French experience shows is that fines may not work to enforce legislation for enhancing greater presence of women in political decision-making bodies. Men are clearly extremely reluctant to give up their seats, so we either need the backing of stricter laws or work out solutions that do not require men to give up their seats.⁵

The Nanivadekar (2003) proposal on dual-member constituencies in a third of the total found expression in the announcement that ‘the BJP is now of the considered view that 33% of the seats in the Lok Sabha be made Double-Member Constituencies. One of the two seats be mandatorily reserved for women in these constituencies, which would change on a rotational basis’ (BJP press release 2003). This proposal was dismissed forthwith by Congress Party’s Ambika Soni, the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) and the All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) whose President, Srilata Swaminadhan saw in this move a treatment of women ‘as appendages of males.’

The ‘Election Commission’ proposal of mandatory candidate quotas for women at party level, in turn was strongly rejected by Mahila Morcha, the BJP’s women’s wing. Interestingly, in a previous all-party meeting⁶ convened by the then prime minister on 7 March 2003, the Shiv Sena openly opposed the WRB but favoured the EC’s proposal (The Hindu, 8 March 2003). The fissure in the ranks of the Hindutva right has been pointed out by Tanika Sarkar (1999).⁷

 

Given internal party divisions, it would be a mistake to either uncritically accept or reject a proposal merely because of the ostensible left/right leanings of the party from which it originates. So, if the BJP wants to institute quotas in their candidate party lists it should not be opposed. Such a step should not be seen as essentially an obstacle to the passing of (some version of) the WRB; rather, a legally enforced policy could incorporate such voluntary moves.

 

However, without legal enforcement, a voluntarily adopted policy of gender quotas may not be sustainable (Baldez 2004). Following voluntary adoption of gender quotas, the percentage of women elected to the Mexican Congress decreased in the 2000 election, notwithstanding the presence of women in prominent leadership positions. ‘This reversal challenged assumptions that the election of women would continue to increase over time, a realization that prompted feminist legislators to intensify their efforts to pass an enforceable gender quotas law at the national level’ (Baldez 2004: 241).

That legislation is a must is clear from other examples too. In Argentina, there used to be a quota for women in 1955, when the percentage of women in the national chamber of deputies was 22 per cent. When the quota legislation was suspended for a forty-year period, the average of women dropped to a low 4 per cent (Stokes 2005: 90). Following legislation in 1991 that required a minimum of 30 per cent women to be placed in electable positions on closed party lists, the federal state of Argentina now ranks fifth in the world with 40 per cent women in the lower house and 38.9 per cent in the Senate (IPU 2008).

My own suggestion is for doubling the number of seats in the Lok Sabha, by making all constituencies into dual-member constituencies with the restriction that both the members cannot be of the same sex. So we should have two differently sexed people representing every constituency: this leaves open the possibility that a person of a non-specific sex can jointly represent a constituency along with a man or a woman. Before this is laughed off as a philosopher’s pipe dream, note that the number of people’s representatives in China, which has a comparable population, is 2987 and that in the UK, a country with a considerably smaller population, the number of representatives is considerably more than in India.⁸

 

All lovers of representative democracy argue for greater accountability of elected representatives. This could also be done by decreasing the ‘accessibility gap’ – if I may call it that – between an ordinary citizen and an MP. Sixty years after independence, the ‘MP-population’ ratio in India has increased, of course increasing the accessibility gap. Is it not time that we considered increasing the number of representatives? The advantage of my proposal is that it will take care of the pro-incumbency factor – blighting the selection of women to winnable seats in the Election Commission proposal; it will stem the ire of OBC men as it does not undo the gains made by them in the Lok Sabha; it does away with the objection of ‘dilution’ made by women’s groups against the dual-member constituencies proposal for a third of the seats. This proposal is obviously not a panacea. Neither ‘culture’ on its own nor ‘top-down’ initiatives on their own can be relied upon to deliver the goods.

The current government under the leadership of the United Progressive Alliance came to office with the promise to ‘take the lead to introduce legislation for one-third reservation for women in Vidhan Sabhas and in the Lok Sabha’ amongst other measures in its Common Minimum Programme. On 5 May 2008, the Union Cabinet finally moved the WRB for discussion in the Rajya Sabha. The expected opposition even from within the coalition partners of the UPA is likely to curb discussion on it. We need a change in tack leading to an introduction of well-formulated alternative bills based on the proposals discussed above. Our purposes, our resolve, our deliberations, our alliances, our designs and our revisions require careful calibration.

 

Footnotes:

1. See my ‘Introduction’ in Dhanda (ed.) 2008 (pp. xiii-xl) for more detailed arguments.

2. Pakistan has the highest percentage of women representatives in South Asia, due to an act passed in 2002 under General Musharraf. But women are nominated from lists presented by political parties and picked according to the share of each party in the elected seats to a total of 17 per cent in the national assembly. Women’s organizations demand direct elections rather than nominations (Omvedt 2005). In 2008, of 338 elected, 76 (22.5 per cent) were women (IPU 2008).

3. Paradoxically, a majority of these women belong to the Indian Union Muslim League, a party opposed to the introduction of women’s reservation in legislatures.

4. Rai (2002) also notes that ‘there has been limited interaction between women representatives and the women’s movement.’

5. I suggest such a solution below.

6. PMK, the Janata Dal (U), the Muslim League, the Samata Party and the TDP did not participate in this meeting.

7. Sarkar (1999) writes: ‘I found it interesting that Samiti office-bearers and pracharikas were quite contemptuous about the issue of women’s reservation in Parliament, arguing that it denoted a tragic dilution of the principles of merit.’

8. Besides China and the UK (646), Cuba, Germany, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Italy, France, Indonesia and Turkey, all have larger lower or single houses than India (with 543 seats in the Lok Sabha) (IPU 2008).

 

References

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