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Journalism of Courage
He was a socialist to the core and secular in his outlook. But Sharad Yadav, the socialist veteran who died Thursday was a longtime critic of the Women’s Reservation Bill that reserved one-third of the seats in state Assemblies and Parliament for women.
Yadav once even vowed in Lok Sabha to end his life to prevent the passage of the Bill without a quota for Dalits and backward castes. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came close to making women’s reservation a reality by passing the Bill in the Rajya Sabha in 2010 but could not push it through the Lok Sabha because of opposition from the Yadav troika — Sharad, the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Mulayam Singh Yadav, and Lalu Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) — who demanded “quota within quota” for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and minorities in the Bill.
The Women’s Reservation Bill has a long history. The HD Deve Gowda-led government first introduced it in 1996. It was referred to a Parliamentary panel headed by Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Geeta Mukherjee. Yadav’s opposition to the Bill came to light a year later when the Bill was taken up for discussion in the Lok Sabha. He was an MP from Madhepura in Bihar at the time.
On May 16, 1997, Yadav said in Lok Sabha, “Kaun mahila hai, kaun nahin hai, keval bal kati mahila bhar nahin rahne denge (Who is a woman, who is not, only short-haired women won’t be allowed).” His argument was that women with short hair — to him a euphemism for privileged women — would dominate the legislature if the Bill were passed. His “parkati mahilayen (women with short hair)” jibe in the context of the Bill around the same time hit headlines.
Cut to 2009, in her customary address to the newly constituted Lok Sabha, then President Pratibha Patil announced that the government would ensure the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in 100 days. Speaking in Lok Sabha the next day, Yadav said, “We may not have the numbers. but I want to say like Socrates who died consuming poison fighting for principles, I am also willing to die fighting for principles.”
A year later, the Rajya Sabha passed the Bill after two days of high drama that saw the suspension of seven members. But by then Yadav, the president of the JD(U), was the lone voice in his party opposing the Bill. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced support for the Bill after which the party’s MPs backed the legislation in the Upper House.
The Bill has been hanging fire since then. The Congress resisted the quota within quota demand of the Yadav trio when they raised it in 2009-’10 but came around to it last year when — its traditional vote banks depleted — the party discussed a proposal to adopt the demand with an eye on SC, ST, and OBC votes.
