Women’s involvement in politics has considerably remained low due to various reasons such as political backing, reluctance, notion of politics being divisive and destructive, social attitudes of people towards women, legacy of freedom movement and media speculation (Forbes, 2007: p 230).
The involvement of women in the first parliament was just 2 per cent though it included eminent women like Masuma Begum who was the Minister of Social Welfare and Deputy Leader of the Congress party, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur who was the Union Health Minister, Renuka Ray who was West Bengal’s Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation, Durgabai Deshmukh who was the Chairperson of the Central Social Welfare Board and Radhabai Subbarayan who was a delegate to the first Round Table Conference .
From late 1950s there was an increasing in women’s participation in politics i.e Sucheta Kripalani became the General Secretary of the Congress party in 1959, Uttar Pradesh Labour Minister in 1962 and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 1963; Vijayalakshmi Pandit became a delegate to the United Nations, Ambassador to USSR and USA and the President of UN General Assembly; Sonia Gandhi, president of Indian National Congress; Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Sheila Dikshit, Vasundhara Raje, Uma Bharati, Rabri Devi and Jayalalithaa were the Chief Ministers of different states and Indira Gandhi was the only women Prime Minister of India and Pratibha Patil the only women President of India. Currently, we have Sushma Swaraj and Nirmala Sitaraman having very influential positions in current NDA government as the Union Minister for External Affairs and Defense Minister of India, respectively. India has also had two woman speakers of Lok Sabha consecutively, namely, Meera Kumar and Sumitra Mahajan.
However, it is interesting to note that most of the woman rose to power through political influence of men. Rabri Devi became the Chief Minister of Bihar when her husband Lalu Prasad Yadav was imprisoned. Sheila Dikshit’s father-in-law Uma Shankar Dikshit was a powerful politician, Vasundhara Raje Scindhia has a royal lineage, Jayalalitha was the mistress of politician M.G Ramachandran and Sonia Gandhi is the widow of Rajiv Gandhi.
In 1980, women held 7 to 8 per cent seats in the Lok Sabha (lower house) and 7 to10 per cent seats in Rajya Sabha (upper house). In 1991, women’s representation in the parliament was 7.1 per cent as compared to USA with just 6.4 per cent, UK 6.3 per cent and France 5.7 per cent. From 1991 to 1996 forty-nine women were elected to the Parliament that is 5.2 per cent. Currently, women’s representation in the Parliament is less than 15 percent.
After the 73rd and the 74th amendments act 1994, constitution granted 1/3 reservation to woman in local administrative body. Followed by introduction of Women’s Reservation Bill, one of the most contested bill of the Parliament, it gives 33 percentages of seats to women in Lok Sabha and State Legislatives Assemblies. The bill introduced in 1996, was finally passed in the Rajya Sabha in the year 2010 but with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha it lapsed in 2014.
Role of women in politics has taken a great leap since independence, but still there are areas where the government and society need to transform and work for equal representation and rights of woman in India. The representation of women in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha is still very low and the bill regarding the same has not been approved even after 23 years of its introduction.
By Deepika Gahatraj,
Assistant Professor of Political Science
