Reservations in Indian Politics

The woman reservation bill has been passed in the upper house. There was the opposition from the yadav duo and they even threatened to withdraw support from the UPA govt. While their withdrawal does not put the government's existence to a immediate threat it does reduce them to having a wafer thin majority which is not a comfortable position to be in if you a motley crowd of parties coming together with the sole purpose of sharing power. Be as that may, the Government seemed to have gotten over their jitteriness and put the bill in for a debate and voting.Whther or not it passes in Lok Sabha is another matter and i have y doubts over it.



The Media spin doctors have hailed it as a red letter day for Indian democracy. The fairer sex component in each political party is sounding the trumpet of victory.It also was the most significant show of bi-partisanship in recent memory. If only they can come together for bigger and worthier causes. I somehow dont share the enthusiasm everyone is showing over the passing of this bill.



One of my primary concerns is the complete dominance of women from political families in the current setup. My fear is that men who may now not be able to contest because of their seat getting reserved will have their wife/daughter/sister fill in proxy for them. It defeats the purpose of the bill which is to empower the women of this country who have otherwise been deprived . This bill looks set to make the creamy layer more creamier.



My other issue is this being another case of putting the cart before the horse. If we are depriving women of the right to go to school,the right to say no to child marriage and even the right to be born how can there be suddenly women willing and able to win elections in the lok sabha. Its similar to our reservations for jobs/unversities.If the child cannot have access to schooling how is he supposed to apply for these jobs and get to these specialization degree courses. We will say the system is flawed and we should only select people on merit when the truth is we have not provided a level playing field to qualify and show their merit. Reservation as mere tokenism is against the letter and spirit of the constitution. This will again just help a certain section of the political class fill up the numbers with their family.. Bhai-bhatijawad is passé we are now moving into the Behen-bhatijiwaad



Another concern is the fact that fighting elections is such an expensive affair. With no state funding a person/party is expected to come up with the funds to fight his/her election. We also know that the main political parties look at the fund raising capabilities of intervals before giving them seats. So women for backward places or economically deprived backgrounds stand little and no chance of getting a ticket from one of the main parties. So how is reservations helping the section which it is supposed to help?



The provision of the act the makes the whole exercise mind boggling is the fact that the reserved seats would be rotated. Which is to say if Guwahati is Reserved in 2014,it wont be women only reserved seat in 2019. This has couple of implications. Once if there is a man who is winning from guwahati regularly knows in 2014 that he doesn’t need to be away from it for too long. He also wants to be around in 2019 and wont want some rookie to upstage him.So what does he do? he will look for a rubber stamp woman to take of his seat for 5 years.The other scenario is even if a competent woman manages to win the seat in 2014 she knows she will not be getting this reserved seat in 2019. SO chances of her really wanting to nurture this constituency and work hard for it are less.The Indian political system is definitely not enriched by either of these scenarios turning into reality.



There will be a trickle down effect of this reservation for sure. Over a period of time capable women for the backward and deprived sections of society will be able to make it the power center. But the bottle necks and hurdles in the way that exist today in the path dont necessarily get taken away by this bill over night. It will be a long and arduous journey towards women empowerment. So lets hold on to the corking of the champagne ritual and get down to bettering the plight of the girl child for starters