Changes to women’s Bill opposed

Accepting a double member constituency where women are to be elected and single member constituencies elsewhere, meant that women were not capable of representing the people but required the help of a man, the letter stated. Besides giving legal sanction to rank discrimination which would weaken democracy, such a move would require complete overhauling of the present electoral system, they said.

They also urged against dilution of the quota in the name of compromise saying that in areas where women constituted 50 per cent of the population, one-third of the seats was the very minimum which they deserved as their right. Accepting that there was concern and resentment among some male MPs that men would be displaced from those seats, they however pointed out that “In the processes of social change this is bound to happen, more so when the Bill has been necessitated precisely because of the existing monopolies in elected bodies which represent an unequal gender order.”

On the question of OBC reservations, the women’s organisations said they were committed to the rights of most oppressed women. Observing that at present, reservations for OBCs were not there nor had they been demanded in state assemblies, they, however, said: “If in future it is found necessary by Parliament to reserve seats for OBCs including for OBC men because of caste discrimination against them, then OBC women should get one-third of the reserved quota”.

The signatories to the letter were the All India Democratic Women’s Association, All India Women’s Conference, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Joint Women’s Programme, Mahila Dakshata Samity, National Federation of Indian Women and YWCA of India.