Perils of reservation — Listen to Mulayam Singh

The holding back of the Bill aimed at reserving a third of parliamentary seats for women is no bad thing. The last Government rushed ahead with it without generating a consensus. H.D. Deve Gowda even urged, peculiarly, that it should be passed without discussion. But there is no forcing unanimity on this one. The fundamental problem can be summed up in five words: where to draw the line? The logic of legally enforced affirmative action is to forever keep extending it, and there is no dearth of historically suppressed groups in India. If reservation — whether of 33 or 25 per cent of the seats — for women is justified, why not for OBC, tribal and other backward categories of women, as promptly suggested? Why no reservation for a hundred other groups?

The Bill may have run into rough weather because vested interests are ranged against it, but that does not make it a good Bill. The first outcome of reservation of seats in Parliament would be to deny voters a choice, to ask them to vote on any criteria other than a candidate’s popularity: gender, caste, religion and what not. Hardened by India’s less than glorious parliamentary record of recent years, many could say that choice is notional in any case. Yet Parliament still can claim to legislate for the whole country. A reserved Parliament would become a faithful replica of a society riven by caste, class and gender conflicts. That may suit some, even many, groups. It would not make for united government trying to deliver for the country as a whole, surely an ideal worth striving for. Those who say that vehement opposition to the Bill reflects male politicians’ insecurity do not see that MPs fear losing their seats, not an imminent collapse of male domination. Progressive legislation for women is not lacking now. Not only on women but also on labour, religion and a dozen other things, India has among the more progressive laws. The problem has ever been implementation. Perhaps a larger number of women in Parliament could force “women’s issues” near the top of the agenda. The question is, is it worth it to play up and accentuate divisions in an already dangerously divided country? It is easy to say today that there would be no further reservations. Once the floodgates are opened, there is no saying where the tide will rush in. The unstable dynamics of Indian politics do not bear repetition. It could be time tomorrow for a Parliament made up entirely of reserved seats. That aside, such tokenism only enables politicians to cheerfully drop their real duties to a group. The foremost of these in women’s case is education, which alone can bring empowerment in its wake.

A far simpler alternative was always available, and it should not now be disregarded because it has been proposed by Mulayam Singh Yadav. If political will really exists, let the political parties agree to issue a certain proportion of their tickets to women. This will probably not be a hoax. If male politicians’ of Laloo Yadav’s ilk put their women forward as proxies, they would strive to make sure that they did not get unwinnable tickets. If not, disgruntled women politicians would hardly sit quiet, making greater fairness likelier with the passage of time.