In 1966, it was almost impossible for seasoned democracies of the West to picture a woman Head of State. The January 28, 1966 issue of the TIME magazine said ‘The idea of a woman Prime Minister strikes outsiders as more curious than it does most Indians….. Today there are no fewer than 59 women in India’s Parliament, v. only 12 in the US. Congress.’ Indira Gandhi defeated Morarji Desai by 355 to 169 votes to become the first woman Prime Minister of the world’s most populous democracy. Sirima Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka was the only other woman to head a national government until then. Two decades later, in 1985, Congress nominated 32 female candidates, however, only 19 in 1980 and 17 in 1990. This insinuated that women have had an insufficient influence on intra-party power structures of the Congress, especially when it comes to ticket distribution during elections. This was neither limited to national mainstream political parties nor to the discourse on one-party domination in India. Gyanendra Kumar Yadav and Ravindra Kumar Verma wrote in 1996 that since the Janata Dal came to power in Bihar, there had been a significant rise in women legislators. However, since political parties’ basic structure and methods of operation remained unchanged, no major changes in favour of women’s participation were achieved in the state.
Numbers can often obscure qualitative social realities since statistics fail to define how much agency a woman was able to exercise in casting her vote. Both in terms of representation as well as participation. It was discovered in a 2014 analysis that women’s vote share in India increased dramatically over the last 50 years, and was interpreted as a positive trend. According to a 1996 National Election Survey, a total of 36 per cent of women were influenced by their spouses’ views or opinions of their family members when deciding who to vote for. These patterns may indicate that women are more reliant on familial opinion since they are denied access to institutional and social capital that would enable them to form independent political opinions. It is also to note that in states such as Uttar Pradesh, about 85,000 women are unable to vote in each constituency because they are not registered voters (Parishad, 2019).
In terms of the overall percentage of women lawmakers, India is far behind Bangladesh and Rwanda (62% of Rwandan legislators are women; which accounts for the highest women representation in a country across the globe). Women account for 14.58 per cent of total members in the Lok Sabha of India. As of 2018, the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed to have 3 crore, female members, while the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) claims to have 1 crore, and the All India Mahila Congress (AIMC) claims to have millions. Clearly, women are joining political parties in large numbers. What is interesting is an inference made by few scholars on the caste dimension — Gender wise profile of women supporters across major social groups shows how the BJP’s support comes from the privileged sections within women. The amount of support provided to the BJP by women from various social classes varies dramatically. Women from the urban, wealthy, educated, and upper castes are more likely to vote for the BJP.
Not turning a blind eye to the caste identity intertwined with the question of women representation in India, such an inference is a sizeable abandonment of women’s cause. It rather suggests that crores of women in BJP who could serve as role models and inspire millions of women to join politics are being discriminated against on the basis of caste and political preferences. It is further an indisposition that suggests that polarisation of feminist goals result from disunity among women when cut across caste lines. The question should rather be — while so many women work on the ground, behind electoral cloaks, why only a handful of women leaders from the front (as representatives)? The answers could be many — the idea of women being only proxy candidates, the assumption of women being imprudent, irrational and indecisive, doubts regarding their leadership skills and ability to win, misogynist mindset of male or female members who are influential in intra-party politics.
“Why is it important for women to lead from the front?”
Role Model Effect – A study on Female Candidacy in India
A 2018 study by Sonia Bhalotra examines women’s electoral success and subsequent female candidacy in India’s 3,473 electoral constituencies from 1980 to 2007. The study holds that the lack of women role models to look up to, results in confidence deficit in other women who aspire to join politics. First, the study finds that a woman’s electoral victory increases the probability of having a woman major-party candidate in the next election by 18.5 per cent. This is completely attributable to an increased propensity of the incumbent woman to stand for re-election. Disappointingly, there was no evidence that new women were encouraged to contest. Albeit, it is to note that the (woman) incumbent receiving her party’s nomination for re-election is a significant achievement in Indian politics, where 34% of female incumbents and 28% of male incumbents do not seek re-election despite the absence of term limits. Second, witnessing a woman’s win has no spillover effects: other parties do not turn to fielding women candidates, and female candidacy in neighbouring constituencies does not increase. Third, in states where gender inequality is deeply entrenched, a woman’s electoral success is accompanied by a substantial drop in the number of new female candidates running in the following election.
Women’s continued political isolation prevents them from substantially influencing reforms in terms of countering the abuse that they are subjected in their daily lives. Writing in the background of Maharashtra’s zilla parishad elections, when Samagra Mahila Aghadi (All Women’s Front) arose to compete from 24 districts, American-Indian sociologist Gail Omvedt highlighted the defeat of women in combating violence faced by them in the private sphere.
‘Women legislators and economic performance’ paper by United Nations (University World Institute for Development Economics Research) argues that if women are adequately represented in politics, there will be better economic performance, fewer crimes, less corruption, work being done faster, more efficiency and less vulnerability to political opportunism. A study of this sort firstly homogenised the political behaviour of women and can also be used as a political tool by parties to gain undue advantage. Secondly, it can be dangerous for any democracy when assumptions such as these are made about the identity of any candidate (caste, religion, class, ethnicity or sexual identity).
In the Indian context, the need for women leadership is the expectation that women legislators who come to power will smash the misogynist rants proscribing women and their leadership skills as incompetent and encourage more women to be decision-makers in a highly male-dominated society. More political participation of women will help tread the path of gender equality and have a positive effect on a range of policy issues emphasizing family, women’s rights issues, quality of life such as health and education. One of the factors hindering the goal of a gender-just society is the laws for the protection of women’s rights being framed from a patriarchal lens. Women legislators supposedly have the ability to undo these wrongs with a strong political will.
All Comments () +