Our Women Deficient Legislatures

The data presented by Union Law and Justice Minister Mr. Kiren Rijiju in the Lok Sabha on representation of women across central and state legislatures paints a grim picture of glaring gender disparity and gross underrepresentation. While women lawmakers constitute a little less than 15% in the two houses of Parliament, in only 10 State Assemblies do their numbers go beyond 10%.

In a whopping 19 state legislatures their numbers were less than 10%. According to the statistics, the average of representation across State Assemblies works out to be just around 8%. In a country where the sex ratio has been approaching the ideal 50:50 and turnout of women voters has steadily risen from 46% in 1962 to 67% in 2019, the measly representation in the elected bodies makes for a poignant commentary.

The dismal picture is also corroborated by the data collected by the Inter-Parliamentary Union which had ranked India 148 among the comity of nations with regard to women’s representation in 2021. China at 86, Pakistan at 116, Bangladesh at 111 and Afghanistan at 71 ranked better than India. Curiously, India’s ranking had declined over the years from 95 in 1998 and 144 in 2008.

However, several of these nations provided nomination to women for a fixed proportion of seats in their legislatures. The appallingly low representation of women reflects snail-paced progress of democracy in India in terms of imparting gender-parity to it while most democracies around the world and neighbouring nations have been making strides in the matter.

In the first General Elections in 1952 only 5% of the MPs elected to the Lok Sabha were females. But some of the more well-known democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom had still lesser representation of women. The US House of Representatives had only 3% while the UK Parliament had 5% women. Reasons for the underrepresentation are not difficult to find.

Patriarchy, perceived and oftcited theory of women being ‘weak’ candidates, and hold of conservatism not allowing women to step outside the domestic realm and politics being a strictly No-Go area, thwart equal participation of women in politics, especially the ones involving the heat and dust of elections.

Viewed in the backdrop of the vociferous rhetoric on gender parity in the political sphere (regardless of parties), the low representation speaks of the insincerity of the political class in pursuing the objective of women’s empowerment.

Perhaps no better evidence of it can be cited than the way Women’s Reservation Bill 2008 has been consigned to the cold storage by two principal parties—The Congress and the BJP. It can be agreed that reservation cannot be the panacea, but it must be admitted that it can provide a kick-start to the process which at its current stage refuses to move forward.