Women across India have come together under the banner of a non-partisan platform called Shakti – Political Power to Women.
Hotel Chalukya in Bangalore was abuzz with activity on December 8 with women of all ages busily preparing for the launch of a non-partisan platform for greater gender equality in politics. The group’s express aim is to increase the number of female MPs, given that the general elections are only a few months away.
While India has seen a number of strong female leaders – from Sarojini Naidu and Vijayalakshmi Pandit in its early years to Mayawati, Jayalalitha, Mamata Banerjee and Sonia Gandhi in recent time – the rank-and-file Indian politician, as well as leaders of political parties, mostly tend to be male.
Most women politicians – Banerjee is a notable exception – also tend to be related to leading politicians or political ideologues.
Women have participated in every election since independence, with their total voting percentage – which originally lagged behind that of men – growing steadily. Their participation in government, however, hasn’t kept pace – it has not been above 12% in any of the Lok Sabhas.
The same is true for the state assemblies, with some states in the Northeast never having elected a women MLA till date. At 40, West Bengal probably has the largest number of women legislator – 31 of which are from the Trinamool Congress alone.
Tired of such under-representation in places of governance, women across India have come together under the banner of a non-partisan, non-political platform called Shakti – Political Power to Women. Several women had travelled from across south India to be a part of its launch.
Originally called the Indian Women’s Caucus, the group’s first meeting, a round table, was organised in Goa in October 2018. The meeting was led by Tara Krishnaswamy, author, activist and organiser of the Citizens for Bengaluru movement and Rajeshree Iyer Nagarsekar, who runs a women’s magazine and is also a citizen’s rights activist.
They expected about 20 participants, but nearly 70 women showed up. This was an indication that women are no longer willing to stay in the shadows and want their own place in the sun. The second meeting was thus organised on a larger scale in Bangalore.
The name and logo were launched by a group of women who had overcome great duress to get elected and those who had successfully made a mark while in office. This included Varsha Nikam and Archana Jatkar, both village sarpanches from Yavatmal district in Maharashtra; Krishnaveni, an intrepid leader from the Dalit community in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli, and who took on the might of a powerful industrialist to protect her village commons.
Also present at the unveiling were Krishnaswamy and T.R. Raghunandan, a retired IAS officer who has been involved in Panchayat Raj issues for decades and continues to maintain a keen interest in the field.
The most vibrant voice, however, was heard much later in the day – when the veteran political leader, 85-year-old Leela Devi R. Prasad, was given the floor. In a six-minute address, she succeeded in recounting the history of her own foray into politics, her efforts to increase women’s participation in mainstream politics and challenge the house with her own solution to the burning issue of the day.
“Like my mother, I too was a social worker, and remain one. I’m a politician by accident,” she said. In 1956, she became one of the first women corporators in Bangalore at the age of 22. She went on to win three elections to the Karnataka assembly and was later made the minister of women and child development in the state. She was also the chair of the Education and the Health Committee.
“Women can deliver results when they believe in themselves,” she declared. “When I was a Rajya Sabha member, I printed and distributed 500 copies of my book, Politics on the Women’s Question to almost all the MPs,” she said to cheers of women. Prasad went on: “Why ask for only 33%? Let’s demand 50%”.
“I have been fighting now for 50 years for women to be active and effective representatives in our elected bodies. But I’m sorry that it is still pending. How long shall we fight? They are deaf, even women ministers are deaf.”
“Do you know my age? I worked with Morarji Desai, with Indira Gandhi… I’m 85 years of age. But age doesn’t come in the way to fight for justice. Now shall we carry the fight to Delhi?” The clapping grew louder.
She asked for a show of hands, and almost all hands in the room went up. “Thank you, but this is not enough. Each one of us must bring 50 more with us to Delhi,” she said.
She has her own take on the way forward to realising women’s reservation.
“It’s a burning issue for us, and all that we have done hasn’t worked so far. So let us look for out-of-the-box solutions. Let’s go to the Election Commission – it’s an independent constitutional authority – and place a demand that they only allot symbols to parties which give 50% of their seats to women.”
This suggestion has been made before, and coming from a very senior and respected practitioner, deserves more attention than it has received.
The Women’s Reservation Bill, first floated in the 90s, was the 73rd and 74th amendment to the constitution, and reserved one-third of seats in panchayats and urban local bodies. In 2008, a draft of the Bill, making the same one-third reservation for women, was drafted as the 108th amendment to the constitution. It came up for discussion in parliament and was passed in the Rajya Sabha.
However, it lapsed in 2014 as it was not discussed and passed in the Lok Sabha. Overall, despite political parties claiming to be in support, it is yet to even be discussed in the present Lok Sabha. The BJP, with its brute majority, missed its chance to make history by passing it during this term. There is only one brief budget session left before this Lok Sabha comes to an end, and elections are likely to be held sometime after that.
But women are no longer going to allow such complacent attitude. Just three weeks after its launch, Shakti ran a successful phone-in campaign ‘Call Your MP‘ on December 27. Volunteers from all over the country, later estimated at over 500, made calls to MPs to get them to support the Women’s Reservation Bill.
While the topic ultimately did not come up for discussion in the winter session, this was no dampener to the spirit of the volunteers who succeeded in getting 127 out of the 543 MPs to voice support for the Bill.
Most recently, on January 12, a delegation from Shakti met DMK president M.K. Stalin in Chennai to urge him to field more women candidates in the upcoming general election.
“In the last election, a mere 5% of tickets were given to women by the DMK. Women are half the society and the social justice legacy of DMK has little meaning if political justice is not done to Tamil women,” Krishnaswamy said in a statement, adding: “Unless political parties change their own internal mechanisms for women’s representation in election committees and candidate selection process, it will be the same old recycled men candidates and India cannot make much progress.”
At present, the group is gearing up to continue pressuring political parties to give more seats to women in the run-up to the next general election, as well as launch the Delhi chapter at the earliest.
Article Credit:- TheWire