Women lag in India's polls

By Neeta Lal

It is a sad reflection on the world's largest democracy - the one that gave the world its second female prime minister, Indira Gandhi - that despite 14 general elections and six decades of independence, Indian women still have an abysmal representation in parliament.

In other words, a demographic that constitutes over 50% of India's 1.1 billion population - or 340 million voters out of a total electorate of 710 million in 2009 - constitutes a lowly 9% of the total strength of the Lok Sabha (Lower House). Voters will head to the polls for this year's national election in phases from April 16 to May 13.

The lack of women's representation in India is all the more ironic considering it currently has a woman president, Pratibha Patil and the capital, New Delhi, has a female chief minister well into her third term, Sheila Dixit, and a female mayor, Arti Mehra.

Even at the national level, the head of the ruling Congress coalition - the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) - is Sonia Gandhi.

Regional politics has several women in leadership. Tamil Nadu has the chief minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram - leader of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party - while in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, there is Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati - a likely prime minister candidate. In West Bengal there is the leader of the Trinamool Congress Party, Mamata Banerjee.

However, this is more or less where female supremacy ends in India. Because when it comes to actual power - say the berths in council of central ministers - barely 9% of the people at ministerial rank are women. Surveys have repeatedly highlighted that in the councils of ministers - both at national and state levels - Indian women are under-represented, with the country never having had more than one female cabinet minister at one time.

Furthermore, none of the major portfolios (External Affairs, Home or Finance) have ever been in the hands of women. If they have been, this has been due to makeshift arrangements. Similarly, in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House), where members are appointed and therefore can be more easily chosen to represent a wide spectrum of India, only 28 of the 242 seats currently are held by women.

The recent list of candidates for the upcoming general elections announced by major Indian political parties contain disproportionately low numbers of the fairer sex. In the Communist Party of India list, for instance, only three out of the 60 contesting candidates are women. The Congress Party's list of 24 candidates for Uttar Pradesh features only five women, while the main opposition party - the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party - has only 26 women among its 166 candidates. The Samajwadi Party has just six women candidates out of a total of 71 standing for election.

This unequal representation of Indian women in national and regional politics is all the more disquieting given that the Indian constitution guarantees gender equality in the Articles 325 and 326.

The Women's Reservation Bill, which seeks to reserve 33% of seats for women in parliament, has stalled in the absence of political consensus. Although in the recent past heated debate has been raised over the bill by women activists and different sections of Indian society, support for it has not gathered enough momentum to ensure its passage.

Women's organizations sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in May 2008 demanding that the bill is voted on urgently, arguing that election year is a good opportunity for the government to ensure its passage. But there's been no action on this front. The incumbent UPA government has often been accused of betraying the commitments made in its programs to bring more women into the legislative process.

Repeated attempts to ensure places for women in parliament have invariably invoked stiff resistance amongst parliamentarians, mostly male, who feel threatened by the move. No sooner is the issue raised than pejorative terms like "caste" and "gender-based reservation" are deliberately raised to inflame tempers and prevent its passage.

This is concerning as most countries across the globe - including India's neighbors - provide a fair quota for women. Nepal has 33% reservation for women, Pakistan 22% and Bangladesh 14%. In March 2007, statistics released by the Inter-Parliamentary Union revealed that India ranked very low - 108 - among 189 countries so far as the percentage of women lawmakers in its Lower House was concerned.

This is not to say that India has not witnessed some growth in the participation of women in politics. In 1952, there was only 22 (4.4%) in the Lower House, but this reached 34 (6.7%) after the next general election. However, the trend reversed in the next three elections with women representing a meager 19 (3.4%) in the sixth Lower House in 1977, the lowest ever. Subsequent elections witnessed some growth, except in 1989 when the number of women in parliament plummeted to 27 from 44 . From 1991, the number has been on an upward trajectory, reaching 44 in 1998 and 49 in 1999.

Interestingly, poorer states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan seem to have elected a higher number of women members of parliament than more developed and urbanized states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

Brinda Karat, a Rajya Sabha member of parliament and a politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), recently told Indian media that the low presence of women in the Indian legislature stems from the perception that they will be unable to mobilize adequate funds and, hence, are not considered "winnable".

"The Indian system has repeatedly sent out a message that unless there is a legal mandate on political parties, we will continue with this dismal picture," said Karat. "It is a shame on our democracy that even after 60 years of independence less than 10% of women get elected in state elections across five states and that we haven't been able to pass the Women's Reservation Bill. This will continue unless there is a change in the mindset of political parties," she added.

It would be a good idea for Karat to begin by changing the "mindset" of her own party, which didn't field even a single woman candidate out of the 34 seats it contested in Rajasthan. However, she raises a valid point, that the Indian "system" will have to politically empower its women if it is to one day achieve holistic national development.