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Journalism of Courage
For most of March 8,the date chosen for its presumably pro-women edge,there was a dispiriting familiarity to the pictures transmitted from Parliament. On the issue of the Womens Reservation Bill,debate has not been allowed to move on in more than a decade. Most memorably,in 1997 it was snatched from the hands of the prime minister at the time I.K. Gujral and shredded to bits. Paper went flying too on Monday in the Rajya Sabha,where enough political parties,including the Congress,BJP and those of the Left,had issued whips to ensure that it would pass with the requisite two-thirds vote. The original paper-snatcher,Sharad Yadav,has this time round found it difficult to carry his entire party with him in opposition to the bill,but unwavering resistance from the SP and RJD not just put Parliament through successive adjournments together,they articulated their same old obfuscation.
The hysterics of the Mandal politicians have done greater disservice to parliamentary debate. But their hysterics have also been co-opted by the bigger parties to hold the moral high ground and reactively espouse noble aims of gender parity in our legislatures. These parties have used the unruliness of the opponent to affirm fidelity to this cause without having to show due diligence on procedures. A Left party,the BJP and the Congress have each been present in a government thats in these 13 years readied the bill for introduction in the House. Not one has addressed the serious flaws in the proposed legislation. Embedded in the law is the rotation of constituencies each election to mark out one-third for women candidates. In one stroke then,the womens bill could unburden a legislator of accountability to his or her constituents. Our Parliament would by this law be unhinged from the most basic building blocks of parliamentary democracy. Various alternatives have been suggested to circumvent this problem for instance,multi-member constituencies or ordaining that each party nominate a certain percentage of women in each election. It could be that none of these alternatives would best the utility of a direct quota but at least a wider debate would have yielded a more nuanced understanding of the implications of rotation.
