After decades of being on the backburner, the Bill to reserve 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies has finally been passed. How the larger representation of women in Parliament affects policy decisions on socio-economic issues has been studied and debated for decades now. The women members of the India’s first Lok Sabha introduced Bills related to dowry, marriage, women and children’s institutions, divorce, food and health, which were of immediate concern to them. In the years to come, they would go on to bring forward Bills which were of wider national and international concerns. It is worth noting that the issue of women’s reservation had traversed through complicated territory through the final years of colonial rule in India, when the British were still negotiating how much self-rule ought to be handed over to Indians. The British government under the 1935 Government of India Act had granted women 41 reserved seats in the provincial legislatures and limited reservation in central legislatures. Ironically, at that time, the policy was heavily criticised by women’s organisations themselves who saw the reservation as a way of dividing the nationalist movement and a violation of the “integrity of the universal demand of Indian women for absolute equality of political status”. Despite the initial protests, the women’s groups did make the most of the new constitutional provisions. In the elections of 1937, as many as 80 women went on to become legislators. India at that time is known to have had the third highest number of women legislators after the United States and the Soviet Union. Political analyst Praveen Rai, in an article written for South Asia Research has noted that the limited experience with reserved seats in legislatures “gave women a foothold in Indian legislative life and set a precedent which women could draw on decades later”. Independent India’s first government removed reservation for women in Parliament, retaining quotas only for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Nonetheless, in the first election of Independent India held in 1952, women went on to win and occupy 4.4 per cent of the seats in the Lok Sabha, many of them members of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Constitution. Though a small number, the women MPs argued eloquently, bringing in unique perspectives and introducing some of the most significant Bills in modern Indian history. Among the 499 seats in the first Lok Sabha, 22 were won by women. Most of them were elite, educated women. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Subhadra Joshi, Sucheta Kripalani, Ammu Swaminathan, and Annie Mascarene were among the prominent women members of the first Lok Sabha. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur was appointed health minister and Maragatham Chandrasekar was appointed deputy minister for health. A member of the Kapurthala princely family, Kaur was well known for being a staunch Gandhian, a zealous social reformer and also for the many contributions she made to the health infrastructure of the country. One of the first Bills she introduced as a member of the Lok Sabha was the Prevention of Food Adulteration that she presented in Parliament in August 1952, which became an Act in 1954. Kaur’s most notable contribution though was the introduction of a Bill seeking to create a major central institute for post-graduate medical education and research. “It has been one of my cherished dreams that for post graduate study and for the maintenance of high standards of medical education in our country, we should have an institute of this nature which would enable our young men and women to have their post graduate education in their own country,” she had said, while presenting the Bill in Parliament on February 18, 1956. Kaur’s fervent speech sparked a vigorous debate in Parliament, but by May that year, the motion was adopted and soon after, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was born. The dowry prohibition Bills were yet another important intervention made by women members of the Lok Sabha. It was introduced by Jayashree Raiji from Bombay Suburban constituency and Uma Nehru from Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, in 1951, although it was first taken up for discussion only in August 1953, and enacted 10 years later in 1961. Uma Nehru in her potent opening speech for the debate on the Bill had stated, “in terms of law, there have been no changes in the status of women, and whatever little changes have happened are merely superficial, as a result of which the condition of women even today is the same as what it was during the time of Manu.” Maniben Patel, daughter of Vallabhbhai Patel, who represented Kheda in the Lok Sabha, introduced two important private Bills including the Suppression of Immoral Traffic and Brothels and the Women’s and Children’s Institutions (Licensing). Patel along with other women members such as Uma Nehru and Seeta Parmanand had argued that a large number of bogus children’s houses and orphanages are existing in the country and exploiting destitute women, and therefore, it was necessary to regulate and license such institutions. After undergoing several rounds of debates, the Bill was enacted in 1956. Several of the Bills introduced by women members of the first Lok Sabha would appear to be way ahead of their time. Renu Chakravarty from Basirhat, West Bengal, for instance, introduced the Bill seeking equal pay for equal work for women workers in 1956. In her statement, she reasoned, “such provision exists in certain advanced countries. The principle is embodied in the Indian Constitution”. She also cited the International Labour Organisation that recommended the acceptance of equal pay for equal work by member countries. Also worth noting is the way women members debated against Bills introduced by the male members, bringing in a point of view that would otherwise be missing. In July 1952, for instance, Fulsinhji Bharatsinhji Dabhi had introduced a Bill seeking the amendment of a section dealing with adultery in the Indian Penal Code. Dabhi had reasoned that the clause which made only men punishable for adultery must be amended to make women equally responsible. Responding to his arguments, Jaishree Raiji had delivered a powerful speech stating that women were far from being equal to men in Indian society and that before bringing in such a law, it is necessary for society to first do justice to women. “I think that first of all, our society is not yet ready to follow the Constitution which lays down that there should be no discrimination. At present, women are considered merely as a piece of weak, helpless piece of human flesh, devoid of soul… First we should see that she gets economic independence and then we should try to change the law,” she argued. The Workmen’s Compensation Bill in 1955, The Factories (Amendment) Bill, the Indian Adoption of Children Bill, the Hindu Marriage (Amendment) Bill were some of the other significant interventions made by women members of the first Lok Sabha that went on to make way for some far-reaching structural changes in Indian society.
