1 per cent consolation

When you have lost your argument,resort to arithmetic. In an amazing calculation disclosed by Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav,this is the prospect: within 15 years,99 per cent of all seats in the Lok Sabha will have been captured by women. How? In the first round of rotational reservation,women will stake claim to 33 per cent of the seats. In the second rotation,that is at the subsequent general election,a different set of 33 per cent of the seats will be reserved for them. But the incumbents of the first lot,Yadav argues,will be loath to give up their constituencies to men,resulting in 66 per cent of seats going to women. And so it will go into the third round,taking the figure up to 99 per cent.

The patriarchy fuelling this desperate measure to whip up opposition to the Womens Reservation Bill is so staggering that you can just thank the love of whole numbers implicit in this exercise. Were the framers of the bill to have taken a third to mean 33.3 per cent,the SP chief would not even have the consolation of seeing a future for male MPs in 1 per cent of Lok Sabha constituencies.

But mathematics is the least of the problems with Yadavs claim. It is the undisguised patriarchy that is telling and this is precisely why coercive measures are being sought by legislation,to help women overcome entrenched orthodoxy. And in his outrageousness,he highlights an unfortunate aspect of the entire debate on the bill. Its supporters have had to battle so hard against a mostly silent but powerful chauvinism that arguments for better ways to righting the gender equation have been hushed.