Some Problems in the Movement for the Affirmation of Indian Women

Alok Mishra



The condition of women and the female child is one of the most pressing issues crying out for solution in India today. This is the case all over the world as well, as evidenced from the work that has gone on both before and after the UN World Conference on Women (WCW) in Beijing in 1995. In India, there have been many developments since the Beijing conference on the women's front.


Recently, India hosted the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Delhi which specifically discussed the representation of women in governments around the world. India's President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the Parliament and others made a number of policy statements on this occasion related to women's rights in India. Besides this, there is currently a constitutional amendment bill being considered for approval by the Indian Parliament that will allow the Indian government to set aside 33% of the seats in the Lok Sabha and other legislative bodies in the states exclusively for women. In the past two years, a number of foreign funding agencies have targeted women's organisations in India to channel most of their financial assistance. Barely a day goes by when the issue of women is not thrust to the fore-front of news in one part of India or other.


Within the context of the theme of the conference "Ending the Legacy of Division", this paper will address one of the most divisive questions in the Indian women's movement - that of the 81st Constitutional Amendment. To reiterate what has transpired to date, one of the programmatic points in the United Front government's Common Minimum Program in 1996 was to seek a constitutional amendment to reserve 33% of the seats to the Lok Sabha for women candidates. In his speech to the nation on August 15, 1996, then Prime Minister, Mr. Deve Gowda declared that his government would move such a constitutional amendment bill in the parliament and shortly afterwards, a bill to this effect was introduced in parliament by the Prime Minister himself. The rest is history.


Nothing happened to this bill until March 1997 and Deve Gowda himself has since lost his job. A new Prime Minister took over in April and the bill made its appearance on the Parliament floor soon afterwards. A memorable scene in that Lok Sabha debate was that the Prime Minister Mr. I.K.Gujral was heckled by the acting president of his own party, Mr. Sharad Yadav, as Mr.Gujral pleaded with the MPs to pass the bill. The long and the short of it is that the bill is stalled.


Various political parties have already staked out their positions and no one is in the mood to compromise. Superficially, all parties are committed to passing this amendment.


The official position is that the Prime Minister wants to have a consensus on the bill before forcing it for a vote even though he knows that the required votes to pass the amendment exists right now. The Janata Dal's president will oppose the bill unless special provisions for dalit women in the seats already reserved for dalits are amended. The "left" will not accept any changes to the draft bill. There is another group of MP's that will not support the bill unless the reservation is raised to 50% instead of 33%. And the women MP's (they constitute less than 10% of the Lok Sabha) have vowed to fight for the passage of only this version of the bill.


In short, there is a stalemate - a situation where having the required number of votes to pass the amendment is apparently not enough, because there are some higher ideals of governance and some higher sounding policy statements. Here, we have the basis of an issue which can stay alive forever without anything being done so that it can become the basis for polarisation of those in favour or against it, and serve as a permanent diversion. If the bill can be passed right now, at least the country can move on to deal with what this law will or will not do in practice for empowering Indian women.


The essence of this bill is that reserving 33% of the Lok Sabha and other legislative seats for women candidates will be a step in the direction of the affirmation of women. This is based on the flawed logic that "reserved seats" are the most important ingredient missing at this time for advancing the cause of the emancipation of women. That cannot be the case since it is not the people of India - the women and men of India - who come to power or constitute the government. It is the political parties who do that.


These political parties do not represent the interests of all the people, they represent a minority of those interests who fund them, nourish them and who ultimately benefit when these parties come to power. To that extent, any man or woman can be elected to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha or Vidhan Sabha as has been the case more than once. Without dealing with the question of empowerment of the people by changing the laws related to the selection of candidates, putting limitations on political parties to form governments, so that representatives of the people instead of representatives of political parties form the government and so on, there will not be any change in the constitution of that power.


Furthermore, if one analyzes the content of power at this time, one can see that in India, the executive power stands above the legislative power and together, the executive and legislative powers stand above the polity. The content of this power is a major factor in excluding the majority of the population from governance. The first-past-the-post system has come to mean that once a candidate is elected, he or she is not accountable to the people and is guided only by his or her own party's interest, her or his personal interests and so on. Those who come to power in this manner are defended by the military might of the state under the "rule of law," if people should take extra-parliamentary actions. It is this problem that keeps people in the margins of power.


This suggests that instead of "fixing" the male to female ratio in the composition of members in the Lok Sabha and other legislative bodies, one must first tackle the issue of changing the content of power, and the role of political parties as a start. If that is done, then not just women, but all the people of India will take a step towards empowerment, and the need for reservation of seats will become an irrelevant issue.


Otherwise, on the one hand, women will come no closer to empowerment after the 33% reservation, and on the other, a division will be created between men and women as well as among women themselves, and neither women nor society will be closer to changing their conditions.


The reservation question is intimately connected with the question of how rights are treated in India. What rights do Indian women have? Today, they have whatever rights the Indian men have in general, and a little less. The Indian state is the largest privilege-granting institution in India. It seeks out everyone who wants to participate in the plunder of the state treasury to make a bid for co-option into the state. There is a popularity contest of sorts to seek out such people. All the organisations of people are under this pressure constantly. There are close to 40,000 non-governmental women's organizations in India dealing with various problems pertaining to women and girls who need funds and other support systems, most of which is available only through official channels. This fact creates tremendous pressure on the office-holders of these organizations to become co-opted.


When an issue like the 81st Constitutional Amendment comes up, the state makes it a point to see that all the organisations come around. To the extent the state depends on the "left" and "right" divisions as a matter of fact, the women's organisations are under intense pressure to polarise between pro-reservation and anti-reservation groups, with one supposedly being more progressive than the other. So the 81st Constitutional Amendment has become a weapon to divide not just women and women's organizations but all the people.


The situation will be vastly different if the system of privilege distribution can be ended. All women's organizations, or a vast majority of them, will actually be ready to fight for such a demand at this time. The pre-condition for this is that besides rights for all individuals, men and women, the rights of collectives need to be defined at this time. The aim of any collective must be to assist its members in overcoming the obstacles they face in fully participating in the polity, and in all affairs of society. The assistance to be provided to the collectives must be established as a right and not as a privilege. Once this is done, women's organisations can finally pay attention to their immediate and long term goals.


In other words, there is an objective need to fight for ending the system of privilege distribution. This is in addition to all the important work the tens of thousands of women's organizations are carrying out. This will be the converging point of the women's organisations. In solving this problem, they will be able to make headway in solving whatever other problems that concern them. The debate on the 81st amendment and the polarisation in favour or against it is a diversion from putting such common issues on the agenda. Their common struggles and common experiences brings them face-to-face with common obstacles. It places them strategically in a position to spearhead a movement for equal rights and duties for all, to end the system of privileges and arbitrariness and to solve the problems related to the harmonising of the rights of individuals and the rights of collectives.


In solving them, they will not only have solved one of the major problems that Indian women face, but they will also have made a major advance in the struggle for rights of all the peoples of India and the world. That is how the issue presents itself.


In conclusion, here is a perspective for advancing the Indian women's movement. It is the perspective that the rights of Indian women are inseparable from the rights of all members of Indian polity, and that the affirmation of rights for the former will be integral to the affirmation of rights for the latter. The most heartening fact is that women are taking the leadership in this struggle.


The movement remains saddled with many obstacles and diversions, and the main problems arise from the designs of forces with power and money - generally forces outside the women's organisations. These forces are fighting tooth and nail to ensure that people are not empowered to create and run their own system of economy, politics and society.


They are constantly looking out for some "good women" and "good men" to be co-opted, so that the status-quo will be defended. The means of fighting this pressure is to keep one's own aims clear, to seek out arrangements with others at the grass-root level as well as at the leadership level where the aims are similar, to raise the political and cultural level of all members of the collective and so on.


The world has already had a glimpse of what a great force women are in the liberation of humanity. It is about to see the full blossoming of that force of liberation which will liberate all women and with it, all of humanity.