The women issue evoked by the Devegowda Government back in 1996 fails to die down. And it won’t until the social gender disparities exist. Women have been seeing oppression in all walks of life in all quarters of the society. Society does need changes in the mindset and in the institution to bring the sexes at par. Historically speaking, India has always been ahead of its developing contemporaries in the issues of women emancipation. Women here haven’t ever needed any suffragette movement or bra burning feminism. And if the bill is passed, India would probably be the only country having seats in its governing body reserved. At present only 44 Members of par-liament are women, out of 534. After the reservation is implied, this percentage will increase up to 33%. All with good intentions, this seems like a well wishers decision. The government certainly needs to help the weaker sections of the society to rise and come at par with the others.

But reservation does more than helping, any sort of reservation for that matter. Though all the parties agree on the causes of introducing this bill, it hasn’t seen passed yet because of lack of a common political consensus. The bill talks about 1/3 reservation for women at each level of legislative decision making right from the Lok Sabha to the legislative assemblies. An alternative to the Bill suggests amending the Representation of People Act, 1951, to compel political parties to nominate women candidates for at least one-third of the seats on the pain of losing recognition. But this suggestion is politically flawed as no party would want to nominate an unpopular candidate instead of a popular one. It is freely admitted by all the parties, including the Left that because of the inbuilt prejudice against women, male candidates always have an unfair advantage in the elections.

The issue has been played about in the political galleries as wished by the parties according to their own advantage. Each political party has been promising the bill to be passed to please the women issue activists. It is time this mockery stopped, considering that the Congress, the BJP and Left parties proclaim that they are for the Bill in the present form, and really want it to become a law. Introducing the bill will increase the number of women in Lok Sabha, whatever be their qualification and whatever their merit is. And it will cut short the number of people elected rightly on the basis of their merit. Thus representation from economically and socially backward sections of the society will also decrease. The women from affluent backgrounds will easily get elected and will thus cause further oppression and non representation of some classes.

Women haven’t had anything for easy ever. And they certainly won’t   settle for gifts being dropped in their arms. And if the bill is to be implied, changes should be made so that the relatives of the already existing members of parliament don’t get the tickets. But the social contribution of the candidates should be judged and kept in mind while taking the decision. A reservation does not give a person an equal platform to prove themselves. And the basic thing for which the woman is vying today is an eye for equality.