Essays On Gender And Governance - United Nations Development ...

Gender and Governance : Concepts and Contexts
for example, political parties allotted less than 15 per cent of the
total number of tickets to women. In fact women constitute only
10-12 per cent of the membership of political parties (Rai, 1997:105).
There has been far more resistance to state and national level
reservations for women by political parties than by the general
public. A survey by India Today indicates that 75 per cent of women
and 79 per cent of men favour the active participation of women in
politics and 75 per cent of men and women favour reservations in
legislative bodies (Rai and Sharma, 2000:159). Opposition from
parties has been both gendered and caste based. The Janata Dal,
Rashtriya Janata Dal (Laloo Prashad Yadav), Samajwadi Janata
Party and Bahujan Samajwadi Party have all opposed the Bill
because it makes no provision for reservations on a caste basis for
other backward classes (OBCs). Among women MPs, a few have
opposed it for this reason but a number of prominent, independent
minded women have strongly supported it.
The women’s movement largely supports the Bill. Indeed it
has more actively and directly intervened in the debate concerning
the 81st Amendment than about the panchayat reforms. Vasantha
and Kalpana Kannabiran, two prominent women’s movement
activists, argue that it is important to look beyond the actions of
the elites who have supported the 81st Amendment. “[...] At a
deeper level, the reason why this negligible group is able to speak
out so loud and clear is because masses of underprivileged women
have a far more important political presence that overruns and
refuses to be contained by the vote bank politics of mainstream
parties” (Kannabiran V. and Kannabiran K., 1997:197).
Opposition to the 81st Amendment from segments of the
women’s movement partly reflects a distrust of political parties.
One worry is that quotas could form a ceiling rather than a
minimum to be improved upon. Another worry is that women
candidates might be pliable because of their dependence on male
party leaders (Kishwar, 1996:2867-2874). An even more significant
worry is that reservations will treat women like a homogeneous
group, which increases the likelihood that the “biwi brigade” of
educated, upper class, upper caste women will be elected,
particularly because the Bill does not provide for sub quotas of
OBCs. 14
14
See Nivedita Menon (2000) and Vasanthi Raman (1995).
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