Every year, with International Women’s Day, it seems to me that the day is not far when women’s participation is commensurate to men’s participation in every sphere. In India, laudable initiatives had been taken towards women empowerment, however, this notion of empowerment is confined to limited spheres. The crucial aspect of empowerment that is equal participation in the decision-making process is still missing. I remember a quote by Mahatma Gandhi- “As long as women of India do not take part in public life, there can be no salvation for the country.”
India follows a representative model of democracy, here the most important decisions are made in Parliament by the representatives chosen by the people. Parliament, which is a temple of democracy, still has a meagre representation of women, the percentage participation of women in Lok Sabha has increased minutely from 4.64% in the first general election to 11.43% in the 15th general election. It nowhere seems to represent women who constitute approximately 49% of the total population. Moreover, the impasse associated with the passing of Women Reservation Bill, 2008 in Parliament presents a gloomy picture of women empowerment in actual decision making spheres.
Further, it is interesting to note that political parties talk about women empowerment but when it comes to fielding candidates in elections, they prefer male over female; the percentage of female contestants for national parties such as BJP, INC, BSP, CPI, CPM, NCP for last three general elections on an average are 9.1, 11.2, 5.2, 7.3, 10.2, 12.3 respectively which clearly shows world of difference between precept and practice of most political parties. Moreover, the majority of female candidates who contested election had to forfeit her deposit, it is almost 100% in case of a woman contesting as an independent candidate for Lok Sabha election i.e. most of them are not able to get even one-sixth of the total valid votes, it seems they are not even getting the votes of women. The reason might be the normalisation of the concept of male supremacy being ingrained into the mind of women and de-normalisation is a gradual process that will number of years, so a big push in the form of reservation of women in the state and central legislative assembly is required for bringing men and women on equal footings, especially in the decision-making process.
Recently, a ray of hope has emerged when the incumbent Odisha government passed historic legislation of providing 33% reservation to women in state legislative assembly and given the upcoming election in 2019, parties supporting reservation will definitely be able to garner more votes from women voters.