Women CMs and women's reservation

We have had women chief ministers in seven states, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Punjab, UP, Delhi, MP and Rajasthan. It is amazing that in all the states of the Hindi heartland barring Haryana, we have had a woman chief minister.

Chaudhury Charan Singh's soul must be wondering what is happening in his homeland where women were supposed to be in the kitchen. It is remarkable that at least some women are being treated as equal or more than equal.

Does this imply a sociological revolution? Unfortunately, I don't think so. We are used to worshipping Goddesses and fearing them too. That has never meant that we treat women generally as equal.

With five women chief ministers and the sixth one, Mayawati, who can come back any time, do we need women's reservation? These six but one have been elected on their own strength without the benefit of reservation.

Yet I think reservation is needed. A true indicator is not how many women chief ministers we have but how many women MLAs we have. The Election Commission's website provides data on how many women candidates were there.

In the five state elections held recently, women candidates constituted less than 10 per cent of the candidates. Thus in Chhattisgarh there were 62 women candidates out of 819, in MP 199 out of 2,171, in Mizoram 7 out of 192, in Delhi 78 out of 817 and in Rajasthan 118 out of 1,541.

The numbers of women elected were 5 in Chhattisgarh, 19 in MP, 6 in Delhi and 12 in Rajasthan. Their success rate was more or less similar to that of men. Yet women have a long way to go. We need greater representation of women because women are mistreated in the country.

There are issues that concern women that don't get adequate attention. For example, we don't have any problem importing petroleum products for automobiles but cannot provide adequate clean fuels to women in rural areas, for want of which they suffer enormously.

Also had women greater representation, the problem of drinking water would have gotten a much higher priority. Men, no matter how empathetic, cannot fully appreciate women's problems. For a balanced society that is gender just, we need balanced legislatures. We need more MLAs and MPs who would voice women's concerns and guard their interests.

The reservation proposals made to provide 30 per cent seats to women, however, have problems and are not getting through Parliament. The practical difficulties of reserving 30 per cent of seats are considerable. Which seats should be reserved for women? One way would be to randomly select 30 per cent of the constituencies and keep them for women forever.

Then, the women in the other 70 per cent of the constituencies would not be represented. This would be a discrimination that would not be acceptable to the women of these left out constituencies. At the same time, men in these reserved constituencies would be forever denied a chance to represent their constituency in Parliament.

Another option is to randomly select at every election, 30 per cent of the constituencies and reserve them for women. This poses its own problem. MPs who perform well and nurture their constituencies may suddenly find themselves deprived of even a possibility of re-election.

This will take away all incentives from MPs to nurture their constituencies. The uncertainty created, is not likely to be acceptable to most politicians. What is more, it is not in the interest of the people as well. Is there a way we can make reservation work?

I repeat a suggestion that I had made some time ago. Instead of 30 per cent, let us have 50 per cent reservation. That makes sense as women constitute 50 per cent of the society. Then we can have one woman and one man represent each constituency. Thus, 50 per cent of MPs would be men and 50 per cent women. This does not have the problems of no reward for constituency nurturing and uncertainty introduced by randomness.

To avoid doubling the size of state legislatures and the Parliament and building a new Parliament House and legislature assembly buildings, we can merge two neighbouring constituencies into one, and let it be represented by a man and a woman. Each voter casts two votes one for a man and another for a woman candidate. The number of MLAs and MPs would remain more or less constant.

In fact, it may increase by one as the number must be an even number. Of course, this will give women more than 30 per cent of the seats, which is now suggested. That should only be welcome by women. But many more men would have to make space for women. This they would not like to do.

In any case, I feel reservations are not the best way to deal with the problem of inadequate representation of women. Reservations involve a stigma. A women elected on a reserved seat may not have the same self-assurance as a woman elected on a non-reserved seat. Also reservations create a vested interest.

One would like to find a way that over time liquidates itself. This should be built into the system so that reservations or affirmative actions do not perpetuate themselves. I repeat another and my preferred proposal. Provide a special advantage to women, which over time, liquidates it self.

Suppose, we begin by saying that to the votes polled by every woman, 10 per cent of the total votes polled in that constituency would be added. This will give a tremendous incentive to parties to field women candidates. A male candidate can defeat a female opponent but he would have to have a margin of more than 10 per cent. So men are not completely ruled out.

One may question why 10 per cent? I have no real argument for it. It is just a number picked from air. It could be any number. It should be based on the analysis of election results. For example in Rajasthan, with a handicap of 5 per cent of polled votes, 11 more women candidates would have won and with a 10 per cent 17 more women would have been elected.

We could say the special advantage will be determined after all the seats in a state are counted and then as much advantage as needed would be provided to ensure that 30 per cent of the MLAs are women. This is an ideal solution. But it creates a practical difficulty. Suppose election results cannot be declared till counting is completed in all the constituencies of the state.

It can even happen that election in one constituency is declared null and void, in which event, all the results may have to wait till re-election is completed. This is obviously unsatisfactory. So what we should do is to announce a special advantage based on the previous election and accept whatever number of women candidates get elected. If more than 30 per cent women MLAs are elected, then in the next election, the special advantage will be reduced.

The attraction of such a system is that over time, the special advantage disappears to zero and the whole system becomes redundant. This will happen when women as a class have made progress and have become truly equal not in their potential (which they already are) but in the realisation of their potential.

In Scandinavian countries, without any reservations, around half the MPs are women. We could and should attain such a state. Then, the stigma of reservation would disappear. Without any special advantage and as a matter of course, women MLAs and MPs would constitute at least 40 per cent of our Parliament and may be half of it.

This should be the objective of the reservation policy: to give incentive to parties to put up many more women candidates. The system I have suggested does that and what is more, it does not get entrenched but liquidates itself.

kirit@igidr.ac.in