The Women's Reservation Bill Has Proved To Be A Unifier

The Women’s Reservation Bill has proved to be a unifier


What a lot of ugly rigmarole over the Women’s Reservation Bill! Just how can women, more or less half the population, be likened to any other minority, or caste, or sub-caste grouping, is hard to understand.

And intellectual notions that the privileged will necessarily hijack the reserved seats are as spurious as the opinions of those who argue that a semi-feudal country like India was unfit for universal suffrage from the very start.

Of course, the fact that we are still fighting shy of using this precious universal franchise in larger numbers may, as Shri LK Advani and Shri Narendra Modi have advocated, lead to more attention being paid to making voting compulsory. But that is the constitutional amendment bill reserved for another, no doubt equally contentious, day in the future.

But today’s parliament has undeniably been reduced to a fish-market by certain elements from the cow-belt unable to heed the call of the future, one in which caste, creed and gender may not quite be as important as before. And such uncivil goings on have been telecast live all over the country, shorn of all parliamentary norms, and, except for the suspensions handed down, and the use of marshals, also of its remedies.

At least now, we can look forward to better parliamentary behaviour when a minimum of a third of the strength of the Lok Sabha and in the Provincial Assemblies are composed of altogether more civilised women.

The arguments put forward to block the bill by the dissenters, mostly to the media, because all in parliament was inaudible, were reminiscent of the bad old proportional representation and separate electorate days of the British. These devices used in the retreating decades prior to independence suited the British Raj imperial policy of divide and rule.

The echo of those times, in the injured victimhood being projected by certain provincial parties such as the SP, RJD,BSP and the Trinamool Congress, is not a mere coincidence. It is also instructive that a number of other regional parties such as the DMK,some in the JD(U) and the AIDMK have not found anything objectionable in the bill.

However,creating and pushing separate constituencies does confer leverage, especially to further narrow regional interests and act as a bargaining chip for corruption. But the broader point is that the fissiparous voices being heard today on various issues owe their strength to the pampering of various disparate vote banks by the Congress Party.

Additionally, the majority Hindus have long been depicted by the Congress as a threatening communal-minded bogey, even as every attempt has been made to encourage the break down of this majority community into its competing caste-identified parts. Ironically, none of it has been done particularly well, or with sufficient conviction, and even minority interests have only been promoted in a token manner.

This is tacit continuance of the invidious British policy, only dressed up now as liberal secularism and concern for the underprivileged. But, like Pakistan’s nurturing and rearing terrorist groups to extend their strategic reach, such cynical manipulation of the illiterate masses and the downtrodden has a way of coming home to roost. Today, the manipulated have acquired some power of their own and are no longer easy to control.

Still, for the moment, this bill may not have been tabled for voting in the Rajya Sabha, if it wasn’t for Mrs. Sonia Gandhi. It was her solitary and principled stand on this benighted legislation, pending for over 14 years now, that stiffened the spine of the Congress Party factotums in the Government.

Simultaneously, the assurances given by the Prime Minister with regard to the future safeguarding of “minority interests” during the debate on the bill, only underscores the devaluation of political principles that bedevil us today. Otherwise, there is no reason why the fate of women’s representation should be held hostage to minority interests, male domination or the arcana of caste politics.

So, while it was Mrs. Sonia Gandhi taking a calculated risk on the political future of UPA II, that caused this bill to be voted on in the Rajya Sabha; it passed with an overwhelming majority only because of the principled backing of the Left and the BJP.

And it must be noted that it is a considerably weakened BJP, after two consecutive electoral defeats at the national level, and a nearly marginalised Left, most likely to lose both its bastions in Kerala and West Bengal after the next Assembly elections; that have come to the rescue.

Coming together with the Congress on matters of national importance may well be the road to continued relevance for both the BJP and the Left till the end of this term of the UPA at any rate.

The BJP is not in a position to precipitate a general election any time soon; and this goes double for the Left. But there may be a larger, tectonic shift in the works. After all, who would have imagined that Russia and the West would become allies, if slightly uneasy ones, during the height of the Cold War that lasted for decades after WWII?

Likewise, this may be just the beginning of a new centrist and inclusive BJP under new President Nitin Gadkari and new leadership in both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha; and also a moderate Left, with Mr. Sitaram Yechury, more vocal of late, taking on from where the wise Surjit Singh Barnala left off.

And the grand old Congress Party, on its part, may see, in this circumstance, a way of backing away from the corner it has painted itself into. They too could be charting a new blue-print of governance, taking a cue from the prescient electoral verdict that returned UPA II to power while giving a thumbs-down to the blackmailing tactics of the provincial parties.

This new alignment could, if it becomes the methodology adopted repeatedly, also put paid to any revolutionary aspirations on the part of the SP, RJD, BSP and the Trinamool Congress, all parties less likely to remain reliable allies of the Congress during the rest of UPA II.

The Women’s Reservation Bill will probably pass in the Lok Sabha using the same Congress-Left-BJP combine, and also be adopted by the minimum of 15 Provincial Assemblies likewise, to enact all parts of this historic 108th amendment to the Constitution of India into beneficial law.

(1,061 words)

March 10th, 2010
Gautam Mukherjee


Slightly modified version published in The Pioneer on 11th March 2010 entitled "Giving women their due share" as the Leader Edit on Edit Page. Also published online at www.dailypioneer.com and archived there under Columnists.