election Vs selection - the reservation for women

Hey..

Reservation - one of the biggest political keywords in post-independent India, this has created and destroyed governments, leaders and people. The Mandal commission reservation resulted in self immolations and hartals. Any deviation of reservation of any sort is simply out of question. The heaviest hit sector because of reservation policies is obviously that of education. Almost all over the country the overall reservation runs to about 70% of the college seats results in a 30% open competition.

And now the reservation for women. The parliament has been discussing this topic for almost nine years now. It has been universally acknowledged that women do not recieve sufficient representation in the parliament or state assemblies. Their status is degraded in several parts of the nation. Infact, there are still towns and villages where women hardly see the light of the day. Though we can see some nice clippings of women piloting ariflights or driving autos or winning medals in sports or occupying 75% of the BPO sector, there is still a vast majority of women who are still to see anything beyond the kitchens in villages and even cities.

But does that warrant a 33.3% reservation for women in the pariliament and state assemblies ? Does this actually serve any purpose or is it just another plain gimmick of the political parties to woo the votes of the gentle gender ? One should remember that close to 23% of the current seats are already reserved for Scheduled castes and tribes. Giving away another 33.3% to women means that the rest have only 45% of the seats left to contest. In a multi-faceted and heavily diverse country like India, would this work out well ?

When compared to several other democracies, India has fared much better in the women-in-politics scenario. Take the United States for example. Of the total 1884 people who have served in the US Senate since 1789, only 33 are women - which is rougly about 1.75% . On the contrary, the percentage of women in the first Lok Sabha was 4.4% and that of the thirteenth was already 9.02%. One of the most powerful prime minister of India was a woman, whereas a woman President is still a taboo in the US. We have had women Chief Ministers and several Cabinet and state ministers, even at very young ages.

So why the hue and cry for 33.3% reservation for women all of a sudden ? What is the expectation here ? Is the plan to get downtrodden women, who are unwed mothers and do coolie work to feed their children come and represent a constituency ? Is the idea to get the lady who has seen nothing but kitchen smoke come and help make policies to prevent such pseduo-slavery for future generations ? Is there a feeling that more women becoming lawmakers will help make policies that will help upgrade women status in the nation ? I feel this to be as absurd as saying that we need one-third reservation for animals to be secretaries in the forest ministry. If in a country like US, where women play such a minor role in politics, the overall status of women is much much improved, shouldnt we be ahead in India, per the argument of the pro-reservationists ?


After 60 years of Independence, it may be time that we stop depending on reservation to help upgrade the downtrodden. Many a time we have seen the misuse and abuse of reservation and it is time that we rethink the whole strategy. Though done with all goodwill, blocking a huge number of seats for women help them jumpstart to come up in status, rather will be another heavily misused policy. Just like how the creamy layer of the castes have alone benefited out of the educational reservations, it will be the same case for women reservation too, with wives & sisters of powerful politicians or businessmen, ex-actresses and other rich powerful women taking up the lions share of the seats.

Maybe it is time we need a 33.3.% reservation for the educated or for non-tainted people. Maybe it is time we realize that we will do a favor to the nation as a whole by trying to put policies getting eligible and good people elected rather than getting representatives forcibly selected .

Chao..