What would be world without women? Would you not miss the gentle touch of your friendly general physician or nurse, would we not design awful looking cars and clothes, would we not war amongst ourselves and drive our society into depths of barbarism? Would we rather not talk to a sweet gal when we have lost our credit card than a curt and terse guy at other end?
There are some professions in which women are much superior to men. Renault chief, for example, openly acknowledged that car designs were much more aesthetically pleasing when women were involved. I would agree.
If i designed a car, i would make it look like a tank with couple of guns on sides for stray pedestrians and dogs.
Ditto with professions like Interior designing, fashion, nursing, contact centers and Hospitality industry.
Women recently also won the right to full benefits in the Indian air force, a symbolic victory perhaps, considering that they are not allowed to participate in any COMBAT scenarios anyway.
But do women deserve to occupy the highest annals of policy making, the Parliament, where fates of myriad of issues from Environment to stray dogs are debated, decided and implemented?
It requires an objective assessment devoid of any male chauvinistic overtones.
It has been increasingly shown worldwide , that women make admistration more human and gender sensitive. Women are indispensible in policy watchdog agencies like National human rights commission and Tribal rights groups. They usually take up causes which may appear wimpy and unworthy to a Testosterone driven male kind. Take for instance, issues like education, environment, animal welfare etc.
Males, though it would be dangerous to generalize, are frequently known to sleep over such debates in parliament.
Males also would care less for human rights violations of all kinds. Tribal rights being trampled over by capitalists, people being displaced by massive dam projects, stray dogs being killed incessently by municipal agencies , young girls being trafficked for sex, nuclear proliferation , pollution etc are such soft issues on which male Psyche, again allowing for liberal generalizations, fail to appreciate adequately. Therefore, its no secret that we have Teeesta sethalvads, aruna roy's and arundhati roy's aplenty in our society.
Women would contribute enormously to our policy making apparatus, since many important legislations on women, education and environment are pending.
However, as with any issue, there is a flipside to it.
Our experience of women's participation in our legislative framework since independence has shown that the idea may not be as utopian as envisioned.
Firstly, women have been shown to be just as corrupt and with just as autocratic tendencies as men. Indira gandhi, jayalalitha and mayawati are names that come to fore.
Secondly, Women in India are not homogenous group. An upper caste Thakur lady is seen as a more uplifted human being than a Dalit man. Therefore, some have argued that this legislation would only help convent educated elite urban women rather than poor women rotting at the country side.
Thirdly, we in india have a strong bahu-beti culture, which would indicate that men ousted by the lottery reservation of seats would spare no effort to put their wives or in laws as their front, while they campaign vociferously to their merit.
Fourthly, Reservation of women's bill, as it stands now, makes the quota through a lottery system, wherein every constituency will be reserved for women only after ever 3 general elections. This would make women birds of passage of only one term and may not be taken seriously by their voters.
Fifthly, women's reservation has not been satisfactory worldwide.
Countries like Rwanda, afganistan are the worst exmples. We had even the soviet union and thailand tinker with women's reservation with not so satisfactory results.
Finally, women's reservation, assuming it stands SC's scrutiny, would open up a pandora's box of claimants to reservation in parliament, from SC women to muslim women.
Having said that, we must acknowledge the courage and resolve shown by sonia gandhi in getting such a revolutionary bill passed in lok sabha. Surely, this game changing bill is on par with such acts as Sarda act(1919), Prevention of sati act(1857) and Prevention of female infanticide act etc.
Lets hope this visionary bill as dreamt by rajiv gandhi sees the light of day.
Administratively, obstacles remain.
The bill must pass through Lok sabha with 2/3 of members (Present and voting) saying yes to it. rajya sabha, where most of members are chosen indirectly or nominated, would have had less opposition to the bill. But lok sabha is where most of members will loose their seats to women, so histrionics and dramatics by likes of yadavs will not be unexpected.
Of course, the final bill thus passed by both the houses still doesn’t become an Act until at least 1/2 of states ratify it within one year.
Finally, we have the bureaucratic wall which will need to frame the outlines and the muscle of the bill and notify it in the official gazette, only when the ACT COMES into FORCE.
The notification itself isn’t a guarantee, all considered, because the government frequently uses excuses like "administrative issues" to put the notification on back burner indefinitely.
Delhi rent act (1995) and competition act(2002) are such examples.
Lets hope that the civil society, women's groups, legislators and administrator combined brainstorm on the bill and pass the REVOLUTIONARY bill with such amendments as it deems fit.
