India's historic vote for women MPs
Updated
Women's rights campaigners in India are claiming victory after India's upper house passed legislation guaranteeing that at least one-third of future members of parliament will be women. This win has not come easily nor quickly, as the bill was first proposed more than 14 years ago. Now, opponents of the law say that minority groups will suffer, as a result of the gains made by women.
Presenter: Matt Abud
Speakers: Ranaja Kumari, director, Centre for Social Research; Professor Zoya Hasan is from Delhi's Jawaharlal University
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ABUD: More than sixty years after independence, only around ten percent of India's national members of parliament are women. Rights campaigners say this proves a special effort is needed to fix the balance. But it's been a long campaign.
KUMARI: We did street demonstrations, we blocked the roads, we had real hunger strikes, we were arrested and jailed
ABUD: Ranaja Kumari is Director at the women's think-tank Centre for Social Research, and President of the lobby body Women Power Connect. She says passing the bill is a great step forward.
KUMARI: This was one single agenda on which we had a large coalition across the board where women from all constituencies, that is the left parties, the right parties, the central parties, and also the women who belong to the NGO sector, women who belong to civil society, they all came together
ABUD: Known as the Women's Reservation Bill, the legislation was passed on Tuesday by an overwhelming majority - with one hundred and eighty six in favour, and only one against.
But on Monday, International Women's Day, the several MPs opposing the bill were suspended after they tried to shout down debate. And two minor parties quit the country's ruling coalition in protest against the bill, leaving the government balancing on a very small majority.
Opponents say reserving seats for women means they'll get taken away from Dalits, or lower-caste minorities, and from Muslims.
Professor Zoya Hasan is from Delhi's Jawaharlal University. She says the ruling coalition has taken a gamble with their parliamentary support to push through this bill. But she also believes opposing parties are mostly worried about their own power-base.
HASAN: Basically two or three parties are opposing it and they're concentrated in two states in the north, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and their support is concentrated among lower caste and backward caste, and they did pretty badly in the 2009 parliamentary elections, and they fear, they fear that Congress might actually be able to gain some additional support because of the women's reservation bill and they want to some way undercut that, and also i think they're very playing for broke, really, they're quite desperate. This was the last stand of desperate men.
ABUDL: But Professor Hasan says that although the arguments are cynical, there are real concerns on Muslim representation - which need to be addressed. Ranjana Kumari says the states where opposition is coming from, are themselves in the middle of a gender crisis.
KUMARI:There were a handful of people coming from the two northern states which has the maximum number of dowry deaths, which has the violence against women. There is a big huge crisis of female foeticide in these states. So these two states, the leadership which is coming from the other backward communities, is really still not paying any attention to any kind of empowerment of women.
ABUD: Some opponents also say that male politicians will just use the bill to get their own wives and daughters into parliament - and create political dynasties. But campaigners say this is a problem that needs to be fixed separately - and they point out that it's already happening, but with sons, not daughters, winning the seats.
Even though the bill has passed the upper house, it still has a long way to go. Professor Hasan again.
HASAN: This was a historic first step, extremely important and a very progressive measure as I said. But there's still a rough and tough road ahead because it has to be passed by a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha which is going to be more difficult, much more difficult, because that is where the parties which have withdrawn support are going to count. Then it has to be passed by the state assemblies.
ABUD: But Ranjana Kumari is looking to the future.
KUMARI: We will keep the pressure on from the women's movement side. We're not going to give it up. So on the whole I'm sure this will go through, I'm very very optimistic. But let's see, in our system it's very difficult to predict anything in a very certain tone.
