Few women make it big in politics

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A recent report says that India lags much behind many other countries when it comes to women participation in politics

Politics is a dirty game, we’ve heard many say. But is it so only for women? It certainly appears so. A recent data on parliaments across the world revealed that India lags much behind other countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal when it comes to participation of women in politics, with only 11 per cent representation for women in the Lok Sabha and 10.7 per cent in the Rajya Sabha. The country ranks 105th in the world, according to this comparative data released by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international organisation that works for promoting democracy in the world. And the figures didn’t shock youngsters from the political arena at the university level.
Prashant Mishra, M.Phil. second semester student from JNU who was actively involved in the university polls this year says, “Our society doesn’t encourage women to come forward in politics. The participation of women is only on the surface. These are women who contest elections from their husband’s or father’s side. If you see in JNU, there are more women than men in the campus and still they are given only 25 per cent weightage in the election system.”
What’s interesting is the fact that all the three other South Asian countries which have registered a higher percentage of political participation of women in politics have seats reserved for women in their Parliaments; unlike India. “Especially in Nepal, the positive participation of women has increased post the 2007 interim Constitution. It is very shameful that despite the fact that the Rajya Sabha has passed the Women’s Reservation Bill back in 2010, the UPA government has not yet introduced it in the Lok Sabha,” says Anagha Ingole, who contested for the vice-president’s post in the recent elections in JNU. She adds that post the 1990’s the entire liberalisation onslaught has made the economic life of women in India all the more miserable and the obsession with this entire growth discourse has further stalled the process of social reform. “Though there are some Left democratic interventions in the women’s struggles; there is a lot more scope for organising women politically; and it is by emboldening these movements that India will see a greater political participation of women, in terms of the numbers as well as policy level interventions,” she shares.
M.Phil. student Shruti Mukherjee, who has worked with NGOs that support women from oppressed backgrounds in Gujarat and Rajasthan to participate in politics, feels only reservation for women is not enough.
“When I worked with some of these organisations, I realised that they actively helped women come out of their shells by backing them up and giving them support. The women in rural India are far more aware about politics than those in the urban set up, so all they needed was support. We need such encouragement at the parliamentary level too,” she says.
Niharika Bhati, M.Phil. student, points out that the most common problem is that of the inherent patriarchal mentality. “The arena of politics is so defamed that people at least don’t want the daughters to be a part of it. And women are still expected to sit at home and look after the household work. The mentality has to change at large,” she concludes.