Darkening Sky

It's really great when you come to discover a good song when you least expect it. So it happened to me. he Mentalist is one of the shows that i enjoy watching on the television, and it was in it's one of the episodes that's i came across this song by Peterr Bradely Adams. The episode's title was His right hand ( The main antagonist Red John's right hand ). And to say: I was hooked! Great song, wonderful lyrics!

Women Reservation Bill : Few words

Sure God created man before woman.  But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece. So goes the quotation whose author has been lost in the annals of history. Sure he would have been a proponent for the Women' Reservation bill which may soon enough change the face of indian legislature. The bill calls for 33.3% or one third of the seats to be reserved for the women. And thought the historic bill was supposed to be passed on 8th of march on the centenary year of international women's day, the loss of nerve by the congress government saw it delayed by a day.
Whether reservation is the panacea to all ills is a different subject matter and i would like to go into it at some later point of time. The point currently is 181 seats in the lok sabha are to be reserved for women. Similarly one third of the seats will be reserved in RS and state governments as well as local governments. There is already reservation at place in the panchayati raj institutions. Recent findings by a government body have shown that:

• The positive impact of entering politics and working as a Panchayati Raj functionary is evident from the fact that a sizeable proportion of women representatives perceive enhancement in their self-esteem (79%), confidence (81%) and decision-making ability (74%).
• Becoming a Pradhan or Ward Member augments respect within the family (67%) as well as in the community at large (82%). Encouragingly, this change is more perceptible in the case of elected women representatives who also perceive an increased voice in decisions related to economic matters and other issues in their family (66-71%).
• Beyond the household domain, and in the professional environment, an increase in attention from local government (64%), responsiveness of the Block Panchayat (60%) and recognition from other Panchayat Members (65%) is reported by a slightly higher proportion of female Pradhans. While no gender discrimination in the panchayat is reported by 60 percent of elected women representatives, acceptability in panchayat meetings and enabling them to raise issues freely was mentioned by 94 percent." A supportive professional environment evidently motivates elected women representatives to perform better, as 60-64 percent reported an increase in their interaction with line departments and parallel bodies. Even the participation of common women citizens in various activities such as attending Gram Sabha meeting, etc. has reportedly increased (68-78%)." A large proportion (72%) reported having been actively involved in providing civic amenities, while 62% said they made efforts in increasing enrolment and mitigating domestic violence.

There were some other interesting findings too. The level of education seemed to have direct bearing on performance. Illiterates did not perform well. Also the younger age category performed better than those over 35. And also the fact that 85% women were first timers and only 15% of the women candidates got re-elected once the seat was de-reserved.

The study calls for scrapping of the rotation of seats and has this to say for final word: 

• The data show that the duration (in years) of political involvement is directly proportionate to the performance of women representatives. As women progress in their political career, they become better performers by virtue of being politically more aware and experienced. Thus, the effort should be made not only to maintain the representation of women in politics in terms of their percentage, but also their ability to remain in politics.

Now back to the reservation bill. We know that there is already a reservation of 22.5% for SC/ST. And add 33.3% reservation for women to that. Bingo you get 55% of the seats of the world's largest democracy reserved. That would work contrary to the spirit of the democratic set up according to me. One way to overcome is to provide quota within quota but that may become too complicated. Western countries have highly evolved societies in which gender equality has been addressed and fought for by the feminist movements. They came up by working their way up and not by some quota system. That may be the natural order of doing things. Quotas only weaken the targeted group in the longer run. Quotas for short duration may work, but being india, we can not have anything that is not built to last. Politics will invariably come into play and the reservation bill that is supposed to be only for 15 years will get extended indefinitely.

No, i am not against the reservation system.I feel that the representation by women will take India to new heights. I only have few certain apprehensions regarding the manner of imposition of the women's reservation bill.

            The law ministry has prepared two drafts of the Women's Reservation Bill.

The first envisages reservation of 33.3 percent seats for women within the existing strength of the two Houses of Parliament.

The second calls for increasing the strength of the two Houses by 33.3 percent. The existing 545 seats in the Lok Sabha will increase to 900 if this draft of the Bill is enacted.

 The other troubling fact is the so called rotation of the one third of the seats after each election. Imagine that 181 seats of the LS would be rotated each election. No one knows which male candidate will have to forego his seat. Moreover the winning women candidate may not be able to win from the same seat once it is de-reserved. What would be the motivation for the elected candidate to work for that constituency? You arn't getting elected again from that constituency anyway. Then the vast uneducated masses of india that refuse to look away from normal caste or petty politics line. Oh, i know indian masses have surprised everyone over time, but, their memory is short and caste lines etched too deep into their consciousness.
One provision that definitely needs to be added is that no serving politicians kin can contest election from any reserved seat. ( Imagine Pakistan has already got 33% reservation for women in it's senate.)


Now for the process. Article 368 of the indian constitution stipulates that for such broad sweeping changes to be made in constitution the following steps have to be followed:


* An introduction of the bill in either house of the parliament (introduced and passed in Rajya Sabha already), and the bill to be passed in each house by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two thirds of the members of that House present and voting.


** The amendment then has to be ratified by the legislatures of not less than half of the states.


*** Then it is presented to the president and upon whose assent it becomes a law.


So there is a long process ahead but a significant beginning has been made and the ruling party seems to have the necessary numbers to force through the bill, but one,this is politics and two, this is India.


We already had a strong PM in form of Indira Gandhi, a serving president in form of Ms. Patil, a strong chairperson of the ruling party in form of Ms Sonia Gandhi, a lady speaker for LS : all without reservation. Women are beginning to break into the man's world on their own. Is it necessary to take their fight away from them and instead provide crutches?


I leave that assessment to you. 

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