As Parliament’s special session begins, rumours are swirling around about the Women’s Reservation Bill, intensifying the long-sought demands for increased representation for women in our democracy. Despite broad consensus and strong moral, legal, and empirical reasoning, implementing this reservation policy in our diverse polity with competing interests remains complex. The Bill, introduced multiple times, faced lapses in 1996, 1998, and 1999, and a 2008 Rajya Sabha passage that stalled in the Lok Sabha.
India’s experience with women’s reservations, like the 1992 73rd Amendment Act mandating one-third of the seats be reserved for women in direct panchayat elections, offers insights. These reserved seats rotate within constituencies, similar to the proposed 2008 Bill. Ideally, any reservation policy should encourage more women to contest and win non-reserved seats post-reservation. A 2008 Ministry of Panchayat Raj study found that, within a decade, 15 per cent of women candidates won re-elections without a designated quota. Will this hold true for legislative quotas as well?
The delineation of constituencies as reserved seats involves various mechanisms, each bearing unique implications. It’s worth examining the potential impact of each.
Assuming a proportional reservation of seats for women, akin to SC/ST seat allocation based on the 2001/2011 Census data, within a state given “n” seats, we allocate them to the top “n” constituencies ranked by the highest proportion of women.
It’s essential to bear in mind that this reservation scheme rotates three times (assuming a 15-year reservation period as per the 2008 Bill). This implies that every five years, the existing “n” seats lose their reserved status, while different “n” seats gain reserved status as determined by the aforementioned algorithm. Consequently, in each cycle, one-third (or “n”) of the candidates will be barred from contesting in their original seats if they are all male, with their seats becoming reserved. Simultaneously, one-third of the previously reserved seats become open to competition by all candidates. The challenge lies in how we distribute these seats, particularly if the above protocol results in a clustering of reserved parliamentary constituencies (PCs).
We face a choice: Either adhere to the above two steps without considering geographic distribution or opt for a distribution approach similar to section 9(1)(c) of the Delimitation Act for SC/ST seats.
A procedure that would latently contain geographical spread is if constituencies may be numbered using the Electoral Commission’s numbering sequence within each state, starting from the northernmost constituency, moving northeast, and turning clockwise. In a cyclic pattern, every third constituency is designated as reserved, followed by a shift in the next election where all second constituencies become reserved, and this rotation continues. This method achieves a 33 per cent distribution while maintaining geographical balance.
Regardless of the allocation method, there has been a concern that the rotation of seats disincentivises candidates from investing time and effort in adequately representing the needs of their constituents. Especially, if they are aware that their constituency may be reserved for the next round. This could lead to them appointing a woman relative to keep the seat warm in their stead, subverting the purpose of reservation. This is not without precedence. A 2004 paper by Dufflo and Chattopadhyay mentioned that in Birbhum (West Bengal), 43 per cent of women Pradhans report “help” from their husbands, with 17 per cent of cases involving spouses who were former Panchayat members. Unelected leaders would thus be potentially undermining village democracy. Reservation systems could paradoxically worsen the situation for disadvantaged groups. A second-order effect is that there may be enormous pressure to justifiably convert the currently contentious fixed reservations for SC/ST to rotating reservations. In this case, the combined reserved seats that are up for rotation will be nearing 50 per cent. This is an enormous number of seats to be in flux every election.
This may also lead to male politicians concentrating efforts during their term in the “n” reserved PC and undermining the existing woman representative. Alternatively, the latter is left with the choice of either contesting her incumbent seat which is now “free-for-all”, or fancying her chances in a new reserved seat. Perhaps this could be solved by removing the knowledge of the next “reserved” seat through randomisation.
Randomisation (lottery draws) helps nullify the “what’s my next seat” problem. However, random draws among all PCs/ACs within a state may still result in the geographic clustering of reserved seats. To solve this, one can employ an alternative approach, involving zoning and subsequent random selections. For example, we can divide the 28 parliamentary constituencies in Karnataka into four zones and then, randomly assign the required number of reserved PCs within each zone such that they are equal.
The reservation system has an implicit expectation that experienced quota MPs will move on to open seats in the next election cycle to continue their parliamentary career, which allows for the entrance of new women into the political system. Perhaps, to facilitate this it would be wise to consider a one-term-only restriction for elected women to contest in reserved seats. There is precedence for this in other democracies.
Randomisation introduces enormous uncertainty as a legislator will not know if their constituency will form part of the one-third of randomly reserved seats. In a sense, this might keep the legislator committed, as he does not know the reservation status of his constituency. On the other hand, both methods subvert strategic electoral planning and constituency engagement, fostering a predatory and unaccountable political environment. It particularly hinders women from building a robust, enduring political base and establishing credibility as effective representatives.
Clearly, reserving and rotating seats causes distortions that undermine the intended outcome of the policy. An option suggested by J P Loksatta seeks to remedy that. The Representation of the People Act, 1951 is amended to mandate that every recognised political party nominate women candidates for election in one-third of the constituencies. This reservation is also extended to the seats reserved for SCs and STs. To prevent parties from fielding women candidates in their “weak” constituencies, the political party must nominate women in one-third of their seats at every state/UT they have a presence in for Union elections. For state elections, they must field one-third of their candidates as women in every cluster of three contiguous assembly constituencies.
Parties have the advantage of choosing where and how to field their women candidates based on winning odds, and political and local knowledge. This method grants greater legitimacy and voter choice. This method may also find greater buy-in from political parties as they retain their agency of choice. This method, however, does not account for the implicit gender bias pervasive in politics. J P Loksatta argued that women have a higher success rate than men, but this could reflect a selection bias where parties nominate women candidates who implicitly have a higher chance of winning.
Though far-fetched, a case can be made for proportional-based representation (PR) as a panacea for increasing women’s reservation. The logic is as follows. Proportional representation (PR) in our electoral system offers an effective means of achieving equitable political representation. By tying party seat allocation directly to the number of votes obtained, PR naturally encourages parties to diversify their candidate pool, particularly by nominating more women. In the pursuit of majority support, parties recognise the significance of appealing to a broader electorate, including women voters. Consequently, this approach mitigates the need for the often-controversial practice of seat rotation or reservation, as constituencies become more naturally representative of their demographics, leading to increased opportunities for qualified women candidates to succeed in elections. Historically, countries with PR are correlated with having greater women representation than First-Past-the-Post Systems.
In conclusion, India must think carefully about how it delineates seats as reserved for women. Building and nurturing women’s representation in legislatures is crucial. Reservation in whatever form, while extremely important, must be supplemented with political and societal investment in empowering women’s leadership.
The writer is a former LAMP fellow, currently working as policy researcher
