Women’s Quota in Parliament -

For those emancipated Indian women it is a ‘life and death’ issue - Men shrug it off as a ‘ non issue’

· Yes, the Yadav chieftains are worried. If this happens then how can they find berths for sons, nephews, uncles, et all who had hoped to stand for elections and get elected. The family ties would take a knock. And so one of them said, a la Socrates style ‘ it is better to drink poison rather than………’
· For the sophisticated Indian ladies there is no issue more important than this. But as there is not much of evidence or supporting arguments for their demand, they have invoked the time honoured approach of being shrill in their arguments, which are:
(1) other countries have done it ( only scanty evidence available )
(2) it did not happen in India because we have a patriarchal society ( Yet India had women as Prime Minister, Chief Ministers, Judge of Supreme Court, Speaker of Lok Sabha and a number of Union Ministers all the time in the Union Cabinet ).
(3) Fifty percent Indian population is women whereas in Parliament they have only ten percent representation ( Same is the case with most of the religions other than Hindus ).
(4) This is a measure to emancipate Indian women from the traditional male dominated wretched life they are leading. ( It is farcical to think that by having more women MPs, the lot of Indian women would improve )
(5) In all areas and so also in Parliament, women can and will perform better than men ( almost all men openly and many women silently would disagree with this hypothesis ).
(6) Unless women have higher representation in Parliament, issues affecting women will not receive due importance in the deliberations in Parliament ( It is a most unfair statement, particularly in respect of those people, i.e., Ministers and MPs in the Parliament in the past who had strongly advocated causes of women ) .
(7) Because……….

Points to be noted:

· Women across the country have never agitated for quota for them in Parliament. The agitation now outside the Parliament and in the TV studios has been by the so called emancipated women consisting of writers, social activists, educated and well off and those consider themselves as emancipated and women libbers. During the last few days their decibel level has gone up a few notches.
· There has never been any discrimination in recruitment of women for Government jobs including the coveted IAS/IFS/IPS. Yet if their number has been small always compared to men, it is just because more women did not try to pass the exams. for entry.
· In IT segment, there is no discrimination and large number of women ( girls ) have entered the sector.
· One finds more and more women in other walks of lives also, such as doctors, lawyers, etc.,
· Since Congress, BJP and Communists ( and so also some of the other smaller parties ) have subscribed openly to this proposition, why not they agree to implement the same voluntarily without taking recourse to Constitutional arrangement ( then those parties which had not agreed to would have an edge is not a weighty argument considering that these three parties with some of their allies have captured a very high percentage of vote in the last elections ).
· Panchayats have 33% reservation for women, which is proposed to be increased to 50%. That gives more women to get elected to Panchayats. What this means is that more and more women would have an opportunity to function in the public space/place. And that would train women to successfully fight against men in polls ( for the post of MP). Then no quota would be required.
· Logically from Panchayats it is the State Assemblies. Without reservation in State Assemblies for women, why jump straightaway to Parliament.

For the above reasons, I find that I have no other option but to support the Yadavs, though their obscurantist views on many matters clearly indicate that they are out of step with the changes that are happening world over, including India.

Signing off: There was a TV debate on the subject. Two men who questioned the concept were virtually shouted down by the women speakers who were occupying various high positions in the country. My sympathies are with these two gentlemen who had a taste of wrath of women.

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