Patronising patriarch

There have been various and wondrous reasons trotted out by politicians for keeping women out of electoral politics even while every major political party swears by the Women8217;s Reservation Bill. The Bill, incidentally, was introduced in Parliament under the Deve Gowda government and hasn8217;t moved since then. Some maintain that women must not be given tickets because their 8220;winnability8221; is in doubt, others say they must be kept out because they wear their hair short. But BJP president Kushabhau Thakre has come up with the best excuse of them all. When asked in Surat on Wednesday as to why his party did not have more women on its list of candidates this time, the BJP president explained 8212; although not quite in these words 8212; that he was actually doing them a favour by not fielding them. His party, it seems, does not want its women members to wage an 8220;unequal fight in a vitiated environment8221; and would like to protect them from the 8220;mafia8221; fielded by other parties.

What a convenient position to adopt,really! Look how the patriarch patronises his 8220;sisters8221;. Notice the avuncular unctuousness in his statements, its sweet-tongued hypocrisy. Since Indian politics will always have its share of criminals and since the Women8217;s Bill is unlikely to ever see the light of day, you now have enough justification to keep women out of mainstream politics 8212; for their own good, of course. There is no great desire expressed here to fight the mafia, or take measures to ensure that women candidates can campaign in relative safety. The criminals, in fact, provide a wonderful opportunity to postpone addressing the issue at hand, postpone it until the whole, inconvenient question of sharing power with women will somehow disappear from the political arena.

But if Thakre and his counterparts in other political parties believe that the issue will disappear of its own volition they had better think again. Women everywhere are watching 8212; and totting up the seats that they have been given. In Gujarat earlier this week, womenactivists pointed out that for the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the BJP has given tickets to only three women and the Congress has fielded only two, although both parties are anxious to claim the honour for having promoted the Women8217;s Bill in Parliament. They pointed out that the poor representation accorded to women reflected the general apathy of the political class to social issues in general and women8217;s issues in particular. One leader of an Ahmedabad-based group even stated that women may be forced to boycott the electoral process if women continued to be given short shrift. In the 1998 elections, the Congress fielded 35 women, the BJP 29, the JD, RJD and the CPM 6 each, with the other parties doing even worse. This time, it8217;s unlikely that things will be much better with every party expressing its inability to field more women. But there is a world of a difference between frankly acknowledging the difficulties in fielding more women and offering elaborate justifications for not doing so as Thakrehas done. The first approach offers at least the possibility of change some time in the future, the second does not.