Will women ever get their due in Parliament?
Twenty two years since the Women's Reservation Bill was first introduced in Parliament, it has not been passed yet.
In Short
- India is celebrating International Women's Day
- Bill on women reservation is stuck in Parliament for 22 years
- Bill seeks to reserve one-third of total Lok Sabha seats for women
On International Women's Day, India's highest legislative body, Parliament, best describes the vast gender disparity prevalent in the country.
With 65 MPs, women constitute just 12 per cent of the total strength of the 16th Lok Sabha.
According to Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an international organisation of Parliaments which works with the United Nations, India is ranked 146th among 193 nations on representation of women in Parliament.
India is ranked lower than its neighbour Pakistan which is ranked 91st in the list with women making up for more than 20 per cent of the total strength in the Lower House.
In China, the representation of women parliamentarians stands at 24.2 per cent, nearly twice than that of India.
WHAT WOMEN'S RESERVATION BILL SEEKS
With such miniscule representation of women in our Parliament, the demand to get the Women's Reservation Bill passed has been a long-standing one.
The bill seeks to reserve one-third (or 33 per cent) of all seats for women in Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies.
A third of the total seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will also be reserved for women from these categories in Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies.
The reserved seats may be allocated by rotation to different constituencies in the state or Union Territory.
According to the bill, the reservation of seats for women will cease to exist 15 years after the implementation of the Act.
PANDEMONIUM IN THE HOUSE
The Women's Reservation Bill was first introduced in Lok Sabha by the HD Deve Gowda government in September 1996 but could not get the House's approval.
In the last 22 years, successive governments have tabled the bill in Parliament but none could get it cleared from both Houses.
On several occasions, the introduction of the bill in the House has led to pandemonium.
When the Atal Bihari Vajyapee government re-introduced the bill in July 1998, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Surendra Prasad Yadav went to the well of Lok Sabha, snatched the bill from Speaker GMC Balayogi and tore it.
The Congress-led UPA-1 introduced the bill in May 2008 with Congress MPs providing a protective cover to then law minister HR Bhardwaj even as members of the Samajwadi Party tried snatching copies of the bill.
OPPOSITION TO THE BILL
The Women's Reservation Bill was finally passed in Rajya Sabha on March 9, 2010 but is yet to withstand the test in Lok Sabha.
Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and till a few years ago even the Janata Dal (United) have vehemently opposed the bill in its present form. Some argued that the bill should have a quota for women from underprivileged background.
Sharad Yadav, who has now split from the Janata Dal (United), once said, "Do you think these women with short hair can speak for women, for our women."
Then Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had said that the bill would only help women from the affluent class as rural women were not attractive enough. "Bade bade gharon ki ladkiyan aur mahilayan kewal upar ja sakti hain... yaad rakhna... aapko mauka nahi milega... hamare gaon ki mahili mein akarshan itna nahin," the SP chief said.
Last year, UPA chief and then Congress chief wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to get the women's reservation bill passed in Lok Sabha where the BJP enjoys majority.
Both the major political parties, the BJP and the Congress, have repeatedly pledged support to the women's reservation bill yet it remains stuck.
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