The Naysayers
Express news service Posted online: Thursday , Mar 11, 2010 at 2340 hrs
Raise women's quota to 50%, don't cut into SC/ST reservation
Satish Chandra Misra, Bahujan samaj party, Uttar Pradesh
The national president of the BSP is a woman and the party is in
favour of reservation for women. But the BSP is of the opinion that if
women make up 50 per cent of the population, then why is 33 per cent
reservation being brought in? There should be 50 per cent reservation
for women. To bring in equality, there should be reservation according
to their proportion in the population. Apart from this, our national
president has written a letter to the PM, in which she has said that
there are some flaws in the Women's Reservation Bill. Those flaws
should first be rectified and only then the Bill should be put before
the House.
I would like to ask who are the women that reservation is being sought
for? Reservation should be provided to women who are socially,
educationally and economically backward, those
who have been denied the opportunity to come forward. Where are these
women? These women are present among the Dalits, SCs, STs, OBCs,
backward classes and minorities, and educationally backward as well as
economically backward women from the forward castes. Reservation
should be provided to these women.
The Bill seeks to cut into the existing quota for SCs and STs and
provide reservation for women, thereby taking away from the main
reservation provided to these communities. This is what we are
protesting against. We are of the opinion and our party demands...
that the reservation provided for women belonging to SCs, STs,
economically and socially backward classes and those from the upper
castes and minorities who fall under this category, should be separate
from the general reservation already provided for these communities as
a whole. If the women's quota cuts into the main reservation, it will
push these communities even further back...
According to the Bill, the reserved constituencies will be rotated
every five years. So, when a woman is given a chance to work in a
particular constituency, she will know from the first day itself that
she will not be in that constituency after five years. This will lead
to under-performance from the very start...
Instead of giving a filip to the reserved category women, the Bill
will provide opportunities to a limited section of women who do not
come under these categories. Therefore, we demand a re-look at the
Bill before it is passed.
Give 15-17% reservation to Muslims
Mohammed Adeeb, Independent, Uttar Pradesh
What I have witnessed in the House in the last two days has both
saddened me and made me feel sorry... What I have seen is deplorable
but I am happy that various leaders have decided to bring women from
rural areas and the fields to the greatest temple of India where laws
are enacted, and empower them. It is a different matter that women in
these areas are falling prey to dowry — our emphasis is not on that.
They are not getting employment or education, but we are extremely
keen on bringing them to Parliament...
I think it is time for our community to introspect. During
parliamentary and Assembly elections, I have seen the trend is that if
there are three lakh Thakurs and four lakh Muslims, the ticket is
given to a Thakur since it is assumed that Muslims have few capable
candidates so the community will have no choice but to vote for the
Thakur candidate. I do not know how, in the prevailing conditions, our
women will enter the electoral arena.
The honourable Prime Minister is present, and I want to narrate an
incident in his presence to illustrate what kind of atmosphere
prevails and what kind of society we have created for ourselves. My
mother's elder sister fought the 1936 elections against the Muslim
League from Lucknow on a Congress ticket wearing a burqa. Eighty years
later, is our society prepared for my daughter to stand for an
election wearing a burqa? What will she be termed — a terrorist,
backward, regressive? This is the society we have created. Our
representation in Parliament was 50 to 55 per cent. It has fallen to
27 per cent today...
We love this government, we love and trust the Congress, we support
the Congress, but we want to ask the Congress how long will we remain
just voting machines? If the Gill Commission's recommendation would
have been accepted, parties would have been asked to reserve 33 per
cent of the seats for women. But this was not done because women
cannot be candidates, they cannot win elections, and parties would
have been weakened. The aim is to not let the parties become weak,
never mind that Parliament becomes weak.
I want to request the PM, my Congress brethren and my brothers from
the Left to take back this Bill. We will remain with you but promise
us that when you are putting in place 33 per cent reservation, then
15-17 per cent reservation must be given to Muslims. If you do not do
this then you will definitely be doing us a grave injustice.
No to rotation and lottery system
Sharad Anantrao Joshi, Swatantra Bharat Paksh Party, Maharashtra
The position of my party can be very briefly summarised as follows.
Political empowerment for women: a thumping yes, yes, yes.
Reservation: a fairly big question mark. And rotation and lottery
system: an absolute no, no, no. It was in 1986 that the Shetakari
Mahila Aghadi of my party, the Rural Women's Organisation in
Maharasthra, decided for the first time to have 100 per cent women's
panel for contesting the Panchayati Raj elections. It was the Congress
party, under Shri Shankar Lal Chauhan in Maharashtra, who opposed that
idea and postponed all elections to the Pandhayati Raj for three years
running. And it was only after that that they accepted the concept of
33 per cent reservation.
Sir, Hon. Mishra of the BSP raised the question: where does this
reservation come from? This is the genesis of the 33 per cent. Now,
the question is: has the reservation actually ever given benefit to
any of the targeted communities? And our experience is not very happy.
The problem could have easily been solved by a system of proportional
representation rather than the party list system. That would take care
of the entire set of problems connected with reservation. And, the
scenes that we have witnessed in the last two days could have also
been avoided had we included proportional representation instead of
the party list system.
Lastly, coming to the lottery-cum-rotation system, this is not a minor
defect. I still insist that this is a fatal defect in the system.
Here, we choose a constituency list, and it is very likely that for
that constituency, there may not be an enthusiastic woman candidate.
On the other hand, it is likely that a man has nursed that
constituency for some time.
This will unnecessarily create bitterness against the women's
movement. Sir, secondly, it is also likely that this opportunity will
be used by established leaders for pushing the candidature of their
family members which is not the purpose of this Bill at all. Sir, once
a woman is elected, she would know that she does not stand a chance of
getting the "woman reserved constituency" again. Therefore, she would
not be equally enthusiastic about nursing the constituency. Similarly,
the men candidates who get elected would also have doubts about their
getting to contest that election once again from the constituency
because the chances that it will be available to them would be only
50:50. Under these circumstances, Sir, the major effect will be that
all the constituencies will be badly nursed.
And lastly, Sir, this kind of a reservation system will make it
impossible for any House to have more than 33 per cent repeaters at
any time. So, we will lack the experienced people in the Legislatures
and Parliament. That could prove to be fatal for the Indian democracy.
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