Unsung Heroes: Tara Krishnaswamy — From techie to fighter for political rights of women

In the talk, Tara Krishnaswamy highlighted the meagre presence of women in Indian politics — a subject that led her to launch a movement called `Political Shakti’ to seek more representation for women in politics.

“We have been running ground campaigns and working with political parties across the country to increase women’s representation in politics. During elections in India, the coverage is only about, he said this or she said this, Hindu-Muslim, temple-mosque, but the whole issue of women’s representation is not given due coverage. The biggest problem is that 50 per cent of the population is not given representation in a representative democracy,” Krishnaswamy said.

While civic activism around issues concerning Bengaluru occupied her mind earlier, Krishnaswamy has now chosen to work full time with ‘Political Shakti’, a non-partisan group she founded in 2018, to achieve the goal of getting more women into state Assemblies and Parliament.

In the past, Tara co-founded citizens movements like Citizens For Bengaluru for sustainable urban governance and ran campaigns to increase public transport and solve various civic issues in Bengaluru.

Political Shakti was launched by Tara a few months before the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

And we win Gold at Cannes Lions + 2 silvers!
A testament to @PoliticalShakti volunteers’ creativity. Compared our Bihar campaign to the whole world- small group of committed volunteers, no commercial backing, no celebrities, massive Covid restrictions – on TOP OF THE WORLD! (1/2) https://t.co/T4XUb8q1JU pic.twitter.com/DxejzHRJSb

— Tara Krishnaswamy (@tarauk) June 24, 2022

“In the last 2020 Bihar assembly election, Political Shakti launched various campaigns that made the ruling Janata Dal United (JDU) party give 19 per cent of the tickets to women,” Krishnaswamy said.

A ‘Selfless Selfie’ campaign launched by Political Shakti during the Bihar polls had female mukhiyas (elected heads of Panchayats) taking selfies holding placards asking their political parties to give 50 per cent of party tickets to women candidates. The campaign also encouraged female party workers to use WhatsApp to send “Nominate-me-selfies” to local party leaders.

“India’s average female representation is about 9-10 per cent as lawmakers. Apart from Bihar legislative Assembly election, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Biju Janata Dal party in Odisha and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) which is headed by Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal gave 33 per cent and 40 per cent tickets to women after we closely campaigned and worked with the parties. Because of this, the number of women in Lok Sabha increased,” Tara said.

MPs arrive, escorted to their hot seat for candid discussion on #MotherOfAllBills featuring in all parties’ manifestos but never on Parliamentary agenda! @KanimozhiDMK @ThamizhachiTh @WriterRavikumar @DrJayakumarMP #WomensReservationBill @PoliticalShakti @BrindaAdige @BJP4India pic.twitter.com/H4aEUVsmjT

— Tara Krishnaswamy (@tarauk) July 22, 2019

Tara, who worked as a techie in the United States, came back to Bengaluru as the software director of an MNC firm. Before moving full time to the Political Shakti campaign, she led grassroots campaigns through the Citizens For Bengaluru initiative on public transport issues.

She was closely associated with the #SteelFlyoverBeda campaign to oppose the building of a massive steel flyover in the heart of Bengaluru at the cost of hundreds of trees during the Congress tenure as well as campaigns for mass public transit systems like the #ChukBukuBeku & #BusBhagyaBeku for suburban trains and public buses.

She has also worked on Lokpal Bill amendments and the Justice Verma Committee for rape law amendments. Tara was a co-convenor of the Nirbhaya Fund Round Table, Hyderabad, for administration of the Nirbhaya Fund, while leading ground campaigns for Karnataka police stations to maintain lists of convicted sex offenders.

Women are the largest minority in our country because 50 per cent of the population does not have political representation, said Tara. “If 50 per cent of Parliament is not women, who is listening to those 50 per cent voters?” she said.