Empowerment of women and reservation in Indian politics: A viewpoint

Abstract

Women comprise approximately half of India's population. But they do not represent equally in all spheres with their male counter parts. Despite the country's economic and technological development, they face gender inequality in different spheres. They exhibit their ability, skill, and knowledge in every walk of life, whether social, cultural, or economic. It is quite disappointing that though they display administrative, entrepreneurial, innovative, and creative skills, yet fail to attain the expected degree of respect and participation in the political sphere. Even after overcoming social constraints, not many women succeeded in stepping out of the four walls of their homes. Yet, they have been successful to an appreciable degree in establishing their independent identities in the world. Gender discrimination, however, has not afforded equal opportunity to prove their mettle in politics. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role a woman can play in contributing to nation-building if she gets an equal opportunity to act as the people's representative in the legislature. For that reservation of seats to change the mind-set regarding her ability to walk equally with men in politics is needed. Keeping the importance of the need for women's representation in politics, the reservation of 33 percent seats for them at the grassroots level was established by the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments. These Amendments encouraged the proposal of a 33 percent women's quota in state legislatures and parliament. Consequently, the 108th Constitutional Amendment Bill also referred to as the Women's Reservation Bill was introduced to reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies for them, which has still not seen fruition. The paper deals with the need for reserving women's political seats as the sine qua non to establish gender equality in the sphere in which men dominate.