Group

Business, Government & Society: Womens Reservation Bill

Submitted to: Prof. M.V. Rajeev Gowda Group members: AbhishekKundan (1111324) Ashish Kumar (1111335) Priyanka Soni (1111364) S. Naresh Kumar (1111374) Suraj Kumar (11111389) Section E, Term 1 PGP 2011- 13, IIM Bangalore

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

Contents INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 2 CRITIQUE & RATIONALE FOR CHANGE .......................................................... 5 SIMILAR LEGISLATION IN OTHER COUNTRIES ............................................ 11

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

INTRODUCTION The recommendation for women reservation in panchayats and municipal bodies was first highlighted in 1974 in the Report of the Committee on Status of Women. This resulted in the National Perspective Plan for Women (1988) recommending a quota of 30% in panchayats, municipalities and parties. Representation for women in panchayatsand Municipalities was done through the 73rd and 74th Amendments passed in 1993. The DeveGowda government first introduced the Womens Reservation Bill in 1996. The bill was debated over 12 years before it was tabled in the RajyaSabha (as the 108th Constitutional Amendment Bill) during the last day of the 2008 Budget Session, only to keep the legislation from lapsing. The bill was eventually passed by the Upper House on March 9, 2010. Main provisions of the Bill are: (1) Not less than one-third of seats to be reserved in the LokSabha and State Legislative Assemblies for women; (2) One-third of the total number of seats reserved under clause (2) of article 330 (the existing quota for Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribes) to be reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes; (3) Reservation of seats to cease to exist or expire after 15 commencement of the constitutional amendment; (4) To select women candidates through a system of rotation, by which one third of the total number of constituencies to be reserved for women candidates will be determined through a draw of lots; (5) To consider extending the reservation to RajyaSabha and the Legislative Councils of States, without making any definite provisions within the scope of the current Bill 2 years of the

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

PART A: DRAFT BILL

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

PART B: CRITIQUE & RATIONALE FOR CHANGE

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

CRITIQUE & RATIONALE FOR CHANGE The Womens Reservation bill in the current form faces dissent on various grounds. Political Democracy: One of the key clauses that generates discord is the scheme that reserving a particular constituency for a particular group of society defeats the basic principles of democracy and equality because the voter of that constituency is limited in terms of his choices and options. Besides the voters may develop a biased view about the candidate and consider him/her undeserving. Rotation Policy: The policy of rotation violates the principle of representation of a constituency. Since none of the sitting MPs have an incentive to get re-elected (all women MPs elected through quota are sure to lose their constituency; rest one-third which will be reserved for women in next election is not known as it will be drawn by lots and hence none of the MPs is sure whether his seat will be reserved in next election or not), it will lead to extreme opportunistic and predatory behaviour. Question of Women Empowerment: Reserving constituencies only for women will pit women against each other and not necessarily enhance their social status in terms of equality with men. Unless women compete and succeed on an equal footing with men, they will not be truly empowered. Because of the same reason, the women elected through quota will never gain true political weight age as they cannot nurture their constituencies and develop strong political bases. They will cease to have any significance once the quota lapses after 3 terms of the house. Therefore, the basic rationale behind reservation of empowering women will be lost. 5

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

Besides such soft candidates will have very little influence on policy formulation and other activities of the legislature. Sustainability: Along similar lines, sitting MPs cannot plan for long-term development activities in their respective constituencies. Political parties will be forced to field (preferably local) women candidates to safeguard their stronghold-reserved seats, irrespective of the candidates ideological and political beliefs and orientation. This would defeat the purpose of having different political parties in lines of varied political ideologies. Having exclusive seats reserved for women will never serve the intended purpose of enhancing inclusivity. Decriminalization: The supposed objective of decriminalising politics will be not met as politicians with criminal background can promote their own female family members in their erstwhile constituencies during the quota year and return for seeking re-election when the quota lapses. These interim women candidates will lose legitimacy during elections and defeat the purpose of democracy. This will lead to so called proxy candidates. It will also not allow participation of women from lower backward sections of the society. The performance of constituency wise reservation in achieving equal status for women has not been so good in countries where it has been adopted like Philippines, Nepal and former Soviet Union.

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

RATIONALE OF PROPOSED BILL: In light of the above-mentioned drawbacks, the proposed bill will not only overcome them but provide several other advantages as mentioned below: 1. Equality at the party level is a better form of inclusivity. Unrelated and proxy candidates hardly feel empowered in a party which has chosen them by compulsion. They enjoy temporary recognition which lasts through only one term of the house. On the other hand permanent women members of a political party gradually get empowered and are able to influence party decisions. 2. In proposed scenario, women will contest against male candidates from other parties in the same constituency and thereby prove their true worth and enhance credibility in the eyes of the voters. They will no longer be viewed as weak candidates who have been artificially empowered. They will win their right through fair competition and political influence. 3. All selected parliamentarians will continue to have the incentive of getting reelected and hence would work towards development of their constituencies. This is the basic objective of constituency wise representation. The voters at constituency level can relate to their elected representatives more clearly and decide what will be best for them in the long term. The elected women candidates will have a chance to develop strong political bases for themselves thereby transforming into political heavyweights. This would achieve the true objectives of reservation i.e. empowering women. 4. The parties will have an extremely large pool of women candidates to choose from with ideological and political match with the party. The women will be picked because of their ideological beliefs and not because of any other compulsions. This would help to retain and enhance the ideological agenda of the political parties. 5. The democratic choice of the voter will be not be compromised as he would have a fair choice among political parties and not restricted to a particular gender 7

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

as in the case of the proposed bill. One of the basic principles of democracy is to promote equality. By offering fair and varied choices to the voter, this objective is satisfactorily met. 6. There will not be any discrimination against anyone and there will be fair competition for seats among the men and women candidates of the party. In the proposed bill, certain politicians who are heavyweights from their localities may develop hostilities against women who get elected from their constituency due to reservations. But fair and equal distribution would take care of such behaviour and enhance fairness and equality. 7. Representation of women from backward sections of the society will increase as now they will be representing the constituencies and not the female gender. Hence the women candidates from the backward societies who are popular in a particular constituency will come to the fore and it will be on the basis of their popularity and not any external help. 8. Actual proportion of women may improve beyond the intended 33% by development of women political heavyweights. The women who get elected and nurture their constituency become naturally empowered and would no longer require hand holding from the party. These women in turn may promote entry of more women into their parties thereby actually approaching towards absolute lack of discrimination on basis of gender. 10. Since the intended bill alters the proportion within the political parties, it automatically takes care of appropriate representation in the state assemblies and upper houses of legislature both at state and national level. Separate legislations and political processes are not required to achieve this purpose. 11. The intended bill takes care of the possible loophole of parties assigning weak seats to woman candidates. In case of deficient proportion of women in the elected house even after reservation within parties, the no.of seats in the house are appropriately increased and distributed among parties in proportion to their seats in the elected house. As a result of this the proportion of the parties in 8

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

the house remains constant thereby respecting the verdict of the voter. At the same time it gives a chance for those women candidates who lost the election to enter the house to ultimately enhance the representation of women. This allows for political empowerment of women who now become as they now become more important to the party than their male counterparts. 12. The success of this bill may prompt similar reservation policies for schedules castes and scheduled tribes thereby abolishing seat based quotas all together and achieving enhanced inclusivity at the same time. 13. Criminalization of politics will be reduced, as candidates will be chosen through fair competition and not on influence or amount of black money. 14. Political parties discriminating against women candidates will be penalized and that will set a precedent for others to beware of. 15. A very positive side effect of this bill would be gradual increase in the power of the national and bigger parties who will gain more importance as they will have more number of members in the house (they will have a bigger share of the extra nominations). This will lead to fading out of regional parties and thereby establish more stability in the Government. This gradual waning out of regional parties will also help the national parties in gaining control over the state governments and thereby enhance positive and fruitful interactions between the states and the federal government. 16. The party in power will also have a far higher share of the extra seats thereby increasing the number of women in the ruling party. This will allow women to significantly influence the policies of the government in power.

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

PART C: COUNTRY COMPARISON

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Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

SIMILAR LEGISLATION IN OTHER COUNTRIES

To redress the long-standing societal bias against women and provide them voice in public policy design, nearly hundred countries worldwide, in different forms have introduced gender quotas in legislative processes. Gender quota for women in political spheres is observed to be: Legislated Quota: The reservation for women candidates in legislature (national/ sub-national level) or for political parties is demanded through Constitution or Electoral Law. o Quota legislated through Constitution The state commits to reservation for women in decision making organs, mostly at the national level (Upper & Lower House of Parliament) through constitutional clauses. Rwanda, that has the highest women representation (56%) in elected bodies, follows a List PR

(Proportional Representation) electoral system with at least 30% seats in Upper & Lower House reserved for women as mandated through the constitution. The sub-national level quotas are determined by electoral laws. The constitution of Nepal, that adopts the Parallel system lays down processes to remove candidates to meet the quota provision (50%) if the representation of women falls below this mark. In countries that follow the First Past The Post (FPTP) Electoral System such as Bangladesh, the

constitution demands minimum female representation at the national and sub-national level. Additionally, the constitution has increased 13% seats reserved for 11

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

women that are allocated to parties in proportion to the overall share of the vote. The constitution of Taiwan (Parallel electoral system) stipulates the number of seats reserved for women as well as mandates the reservation of every fifth seat in a district for the best performing female candidate. This system though complicated, drives parties to nominate women of highest possible calibre to guarantee winning the womans seat and ensures that women are treated as legitimate political actors. o Quota legislated through Electoral Law Electoral laws lay down the minimum required

representation of the lesser represented sex (invariably women) in the electoral list of political parties. Reservation through this process can be both at the national and provincial/ sub-national level. In Afghanistan for instance, an Independent Elections Commission decides the minimum number of seats to be reserved for women from each province, which currently stands at 27% reservation for women. However, there have been numerous problems with implementation and enforcement of party quotas. In France, for example, many political parties have preferred to pay fines rather than put their women candidates up for election. The electoral laws in some countries do not approve of party lists that do not comply with the legislated norms for reservation. This is true for countries such as Spain (40% women), Mexico (40%), Macedonia (33%) and Argentina (30%). 12

Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

In countries such as Burundi, there are provisiosns such as the Electoral Administration initiating a process of cooptation i.e. adding more members to the parliament in case the quota regulations are not met. In Spain, parties are allowed a short period of time to amend their electoral lists at provincial level in case they are not able to meet the minimum requirement.

Voluntary Political Party Quota: This system is prevelant in countries where no constitutional clause or electoral law demands a minimum representation of women. Under this system, in all elected bodies within the party, each sex should be represented with no less than a certain percent. Furthermore, if among the candidates, one sex is represented by less than the stipulated percent, these candidates are nominated without a vote.

For instance, in many European countries, interest groups ensure sustained pressure on political parties to voluntarily increase participation of women in decision making. Political parties in Sweden (50% reservation), Iceland (40%), Norway (40%), Netherlands (50%), Switzerland (40%), UK (40%) adopt this system. In some countries such as South Africa and Costa Rica, Legislated Candidate Quotas at national/ sub-national level and Voluntary party quotas co-exist.

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Business, Government & Society:

Womens Reservation Bill

CONCLUSION & REFERENCES

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