Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/why-the-women039s-reservation-bill-must-be-revived-ramachandra-guha-4685990.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Why the women's reservation bill must be revived -Ramachandra Guha | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Why the women's reservation bill must be revived -Ramachandra Guha
-The Telegraph

That Indian democracy would benefit from having more women in the legislature is demonstrated in a recent study

In 1925, Sarojini Naidu became president of the Indian National Congress. Her candidature was promoted by Gandhi, who admired Naidu because she stood “for solid Hindu-Muslim unity”. Her election as head of her party was, as Gandhi put it, “the fittest opportunity for paying our Indian sisters the compliment that is long overdue”.

In 1925, it was absolutely impossible for a major national party in the West to have a female president. When I made this point recently in a talk in Bangalore, it led to a burst of jingoistic cheering. I held up my hand, and asked my audience to withdraw the applause. For, since 1925 the West has made rapid strides in women’s representation at the highest level of politics, whereas our own progress has been tardy.

By the standards of modern feminism, Gandhi would be found wanting. He mostly treated his wife as an extension of himself. However, he brought more women into public life than other world leaders of his time. Sarojini Naidu was not the only prominent female in the INC; others included Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Many other women participated in the movements of civil disobedience against British rule.

By contrast, the great Western leaders of that generation worked almost exclusively with males. Neither Franklin Delano Roosevelt nor Winston Churchill had senior women colleagues in their party. Nor did Charles de Gaulle, Mao Zedong, or Ho Chi Minh.

When the first Lok Sabha was constituted, some 5 per cent of the members were female. This low number perhaps showed that while the freedom struggle had promoted women’s rights among the educated, in society as a whole the deep residues of patriarchy remained untouched. Yet at this time, India was still ahead of the West. In 1951, merely 2 per cent of the United States of America’s House of Representatives was female, and only 3 per cent of the United Kingdom Parliament.

It is in the decades since that the picture changed, and entirely to the West’s advantage. The number of female members of parliament in the UK has gone up from 17 in 1951 to as many as 208 in 2017 (constituting 32 per cent of the House). In the US, before the recent mid-term elections, some 84 women served in the House of Representatives. This number has since gone up substantially, with over 100 women candidates elected to the House. More than 20 per cent of US Congressmen are, in fact, Congresswomen. The percentage of women in the Senate is also about 20 per cent.

In the current Lok Sabha, some 12 per cent of the MPs are female. The number has more than doubled since 1951-2. On the other hand, in the same period, the number has increased ten-fold in the UK Parliament and in the US Congress.

In America, women are even more visible in the states, where they constitute 25 per cent of the legislature. In some states (such as Arizona and Vermont) the percentage rises to 40 per cent. On the other hand, in India, the proportion of women in state assemblies is about 9 per cent, even lower than in Parliament.

Please click here to read more.