From Kalawati to Shakuntala, politicians are wooing the aam aurat, but activists say that much needs to be done for women's emancipation
Kalawati, a hapless housewife in a remote village of Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, became a household name when the Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi used her story to make a passionate plea for the Indo-American nuclear deal in Parliament last year. For Kalawati and millions like her, nuclear energy will revolutionise life, he said. More recently, Omprakash Baburao Kadu, an independent legislator from Achalpur, chose a woman named Shakuntala of Rai Ka Purva village in Amethi as his mascot to take on the Gandhi scion.
Almost confined to their kitchens till now, Kalawati and Shakuntala have suddenly become the poster women of political parties. And the run up to the elections will see stories of many more women like them, as candidates highlight their development needs.
They represent the aam aurat (the common woman), a substantial chunk of active voters. Though the participation of women is less than men's in the elections, the gap is narrowing. In the last Lok Sabha elections, more than 300 million women exercised their franchise. This has prompted political parties to include the aam aurat in their election manifestos. But feminists doubt whether anything will come of it.
"It is all a dikhawa (show), it is a betra-yal. What they are trying to do is exploit the women and steal their votes. Unfortunately, women are falling in their trap," says septuagenarian Suman Krishan Kant, national president of the United Women's Front. Her father-in-law, Lala Achint Ram, was member of the Constituent Assembly and the first Lok Sabha.
The pressure of the women's movement and the fact that they are a huge constituency ensure that no party can afford to ignore women or openly make sexist statements, says Dr Indu Agnihotri of the Centre for Women Development Studies, Delhi. But she sees most of the "women's issues" in political manifestos as an "attempt to hijack the women's movement through symbolic gestures."
According to Dr Ranjana Kumari, director of the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research, "Rahul Gandhi may really be considerate towards women, or he is simply smart to have spoken of Kalawati. But at the end of the day, all major political parties have been promising women more or less the same things. But nothing has happened."
Veteran politician Najma Heptullah is "angry with those who could do a lot for women, but did not". In the list of unfulfilled promises compiled by women's activists, the Women's Reservation Bill has top priority. Says senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj: "Last year, when we had a rally for the Women's Reservation Bill, there were over one lakh women participants. We have fully supported the bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha twice when Atalji was Prime Minister. But some parties, particularly the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, were hell-bent on thwarting it. They tore it up, and we could not get the bill passed." She says that the BJP is committed to the bill and would support the UPA if it introduces it. "For the first four years of this Lok Sabha, they did nothing about it. And at the end of the fourth year, they introduced the draft bill. But nothing happened thereafter. That was the first betrayal of women by the UPA government."
CPI(M) leader Hannan Moullah, MP, says women should not vote for a party that cannot give a written commitment in favour of the Women's Reservation Bill. Heptullah feels that since the BJP, the Congress and the Left are ready to see the bill through, it should be put to vote so that the opponents can be unmasked. She regrets that when India got its first woman President, there was no mention of women in her maiden speech.
Pointing at the growing intolerance towards women in society, Agnihotri says it is high time Parlia-ment was packed with women. "The growing intolerance affects women most. That's how incidents in Bangalore and Mangalore happened."
But the million-dollar question is whether a greater presence of women in Parliament can redress the woes of the fair sex. Perhaps not, but things will improve substantially for them. Swaraj recalls how she was invited to the wedding of a party worker's daughter. "She asked me to come, saying the bridegroom's people would realise that her daughter has the support of a political leader. She introduced me to all of them, and was confident that her daughter's in-laws wouldn't dare ill-treat her," she says.
According to Swaraj, reservation for women in the BJP has had a tremendous impact. "There are 27 women in the national executive of the BJP, and nine are central office bearers in the party. Such a huge presence of women is not there in any other political party. Every empowered woman has hundreds of followers, their authority empowers the followers as well." While the BJP plans to include a full chapter on women in its manifesto, Swaraj admits the status of women is pathetic. She is concerned about the growing number of atrocities against women. "Even in the national capital, two or three cases of molestation and rape are reported daily. In the Soumya Viswanathan murder case, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had suggested that women should stay indoors to be safe and secure," she says.
According to Agnihotri, economic hardships have not been addressed by the political parties, and women have gone to the extreme by becoming surrogate mothers. The UPA's claim that the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has empowered many women has come in for flak. The reality is different, says Bidyut Mohanty of the Delhi-based Institute of Social Sciences. "The implementation of the act suffers from various shortcomings. Women of Madhya Pradesh, for example, complained that there were no crèche facilities and children were either left with family members or were brought to the work site, where they remained unattended," he says.
The ISS found that in Orissa, the work was too arduous for women because of which they could not get minimum wages. In some places, women did not get employment because of gender discrimination. Despite the presence of a woman in Rashtrapati Bhavan, and women heading major political parties like the Congress, the BSP, the AIADMK and the Trinamool Congress, women are largely invisible in the political arena. "How many parties have involved women in leadership? Even parties led by women have done nothing. Do Sonia Gandhi, Jayalalithaa, Mayawati and Mamata Bannerjee have a woman as second in command? They have simply played by the rules to keep themselves going. All the prominent parties led by women have sidelined prominent women leaders. So the aam aurat is only a political need," explains Ranjana.
Apart from women activists, NGOs working for women's empowerment say that women's issues are largely seen only in manifestos. Summing up the general feeling, Arpita Das, programme associate of Delhi-based NGO Tarshi, has lots of questions to ask politicians who seek women's votes. Says Das: "Although there are laws to curb violence against women, how far are they implemented? Why do most police officers treat domestic violence as a personal issue? Does the aam aurat have the legal knowhow to lodge a case against the perpetrators of violence? I don't think so. On the other hand, we have politicians such as Muthalik, who have their own narrow-minded notions of how a woman should behave."
Das says many women become sex workers for lack of employment opportunities. According to her, "Politicians feel the best way to cater to these women is by eliminating sex work altogether. And for this there is a push to get the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act amendment passed so that the client, too, is convicted. It also doesn't allow a sex worker's 18-year-old child to live off her earnings. Politicians should spend more time understanding the nuances of sex workers' lives to make laws for their benefit. Sex workers do not want the ITPA amendments!"
Dr George Mathew, director of the ISS, says women have become a big political force, which a political party can ignore only at its own peril. "So they do make programmes targeted at women, and also try to implement them. But they fail to do it in more than a symbolic manner, by touching the periphery," says the social scientist.
Mathew says it is the combination of their issues, along with the fact that they are increasingly taking their own decision on whom or which party to vote for, that makes them a potent force as an electorate. "The women of India want a commitment from political parties to play a proactive role in giving the highest priority to their safety, health, nutrition, work, education and equal participation in every sphere. Recognising the cultural constraints and inequities among women in India, special attention and provisions need to be made for the marginalised and vulnerable women," says Women Power Connect, an umbrella organisation of a number of NGOs and activists.
They have drafted a 13-point agenda of women's concerns, and have recommended it for inclusion in the Congress manifesto. Kant is trying to field as many women as possible to contest the Lok Sabha elections. "The solution lies in all educated women getting into politics. Unfortunately, that is not happening," she says.
While all this is true, the aam aurat can no longer be taken for granted. "The Panchayati Raj Act has raised their political aspirations, and also has been driving home the point that their issues have to be addressed by the government," says Kumari. "Political parties must not take women's votes for granted."
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