Opinion Making room for women in politics demands a new political imagination
Women are not just voters or beneficiaries. For greater representation in politics, they must be reimagined as leaders and decision makers
Since the 1991 general election, when the gap between male and female voter turnouts started narrowing, women’s imprint on the political landscape has only become larger and deeper. 
In September last year, when the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed in Parliament, it raised hopes of a more gender-equal legislature. The near-unanimous support for a Bill that promised 33 per cent reservation to women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies seemed to frame a political class that had finally accepted an idea whose time had come. Yet, eight months on, with the 18th Lok Sabha set to convene for its first session in a few weeks, the number of women in the lower House has dropped, from 78 out of 543 (an all-time high) in the 17th Lok Sabha to 73. It is clear that greater efforts must be made to break from the boys-club mindset, which continues to dominate politics.
Since the 1991 general election, when the gap between male and female voter turnouts started narrowing, women’s imprint on the political landscape has only become larger and deeper. In the recent elections too, while the number of women who turned out to vote saw a dip in some phases, the overall gender gap was almost non-existent, with both male and female voter turnout pegged at about 66 per cent by the Election Commission. Women have used the power that comes with their participation to shape electoral outcomes, with even political parties recognising the growing importance of the “woman vote”. This recognition has mostly taken the form of targeted welfare schemes that have often taken campaign centrestage, including in the recent Lok Sabha polls: In West Bengal, for instance, the popularity of women-centric schemes such as Lakshmir Bhandar, a monthly cash transfer to over 2 crore women, is believed to have helped in sustaining the dominance of the ruling TMC. Earlier, the impact of Laadli Behna was seen to play a role in the BJP’s return to power in the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls.
Yet, for women to have any real impact in politics, they cannot only be viewed as voters and beneficiaries — the national political imagination will need to accommodate and embrace the idea of women leaders and decision-makers. Other countries can show the way: In Mexico, which elected its first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum, this week, quotas for women at every level of politics, including at the ticket distribution stage, have helped in the rapid progress of gender equality. Countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, with the highest female political representation, employ other kinds of affirmative action; parties in Sweden, for example, use the “zipper system”, wherein candidate lists alternate between male and female candidates. For India, the Women’s Reservation Bill is neither the beginning nor the end of the road to gender parity in politics — it is one milestone among many more to come.
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