Despite rhetoric, government silent on Women’s Bill

While their number may be small, the participation of women in Parliament has consistantly improved over the years.

However six years after the Upper House of Parliament passed the Women's Reservation Bill, there has been an stoic silence on the part of the government to pass the Women's Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha. Both Congress and BJP continue to evade the contentious 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and state legislatures, an issue which has the backing of major political parties in Lok Sabha. Against the global average of 22.4 per cent, India is at just 12 per cent women in the Lok Sabha.

CPM politbureau member and former MP Brinda Karat slams both the Congress and the BJP for lacking the political will to pass the bill. "The bill is adopted by Rajya Sabha. It is pending in the Lok Sabha. The passage of the bill is guaranteed. Why is there a lack of political will?" questions Karat.

Over six decades since 1952, the participation of women has increased from just five per cent to 11.99 per cent. Globally India remains at 109th position out of 190 in the index on women in Parliament. With 66 members in the Lok Sabha, the sixteenth Lok Sabha has the highest number of women representatives.

Parliaments in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh have better representation in comparison to India. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have 20 per cent seats reserved for women in their National Assembly and Jatiyo Sangshad.

This despite the fact that the performance of women in Parliament has been satisfactory. Barring a few, most women have participated in debates, raised issues and asked questions in the House. Women parliamentarians including Shobha Karandlaje of the BJP from Karnataka and PK Shrimathi Teacher, CPM MP from Kerala have a better participation record than most of their male counterparts. Karandlaje has 99 per cent attendance, has participated in 77 debates and asked 347 questions. Teacher has participated in 75 debates and asked 200 questions.

During the UPA tenure, Rajya Sabha had to wrestle to pass the bill, with Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samajwadi Party and Janta Dal (United) protesting against the bill.

In the Lok Sabha, at a time when Meira Kumar was in the chair, Sonia Gandhi was Congress President and Sushma Swaraj was the leader of opposition, the bill could not be passed. Pratibha Patel was then the President of India.

"During my days in the Parliament, we made efforts to get two third majority from one House, but unfortunately the bill could not be passed in the other House," President Pranab Mukherjee, who was then the finance minister in UPA government, had said on Saturday at the National Conference of Women Legislatures.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been speaking about women's empowerment in several forums, BJP is yet to table the bill in Lok Sabha, 21 months after the NDA came to power. The PM in his speech in Parliament on Friday had suggested that only women MPs should be participating in debates in Parliament on Women's Day.

The number of women in various committees of Parliament has also remained thin. The public accounts committee and the public undertaking committee of Parliament have no women members. Only four women find place in the standing committees of Parliament.

With the reservation bill still hanging fire, some women MPs felt that instead of reserving seats in the House, the election commission should make it mandatory for parties to give tickets to 33 per cent women candidates. "Why restrict the representation to 33 per cent? If the election commission regulates, representation of women in Parliament will cross over 33 per cent," said BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi. She is also of the view that the government should give opportunity to women instead of doling out "favours" to women.