Women are given the propensity of two things -- going on and on..... (bolte raheten haen) and of course there will be always some differences amongst them.
But on Sept 20, 2023, it was historic out of 82 Lok Sabha women MPs, as many as 27 from across party lines spoke on the draft law and backed the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam.
Another kind of record.. two Muslim lawmakers, both men and both from Hyderabad-based party AIMIM voted against the Bill.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and his colleague Imtiaz Jaleel were the only two members who voted against the women's reservation bill in the Lok Sabha. Of course in last few years, the AIMIM has expanded its base in several states including Bihar and Maharashtra.
Sonia Gandhi calls it 'Rajiv dream', BJP credits Narendra Modi
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Lok Sabha finally kept its tryst with destiny and gave its nod to the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment 128th) Bill seeking to provide one-third reservation to reserve one-third of the total number of seats in Lok Sabha and State legislative assemblies for women.
It was expected, and they did the right thing obviously. There are 82 women MPs in Lok Sabha out of a total strength of 543.
"I want to ask a question. For the last 13 years, Indian women have been waiting for their political responsibilities, and now they are being asked to wait for a few more years -- two years, four years, six years, eight years," former Congress president Sonia Gandhi said initiating the debate in the House of the people.
"Rajiv Gandhi's dream is only half fulfilled. It will be fulfilled with the passage of this bill. The Congress supports this bill. We will be happy with the passage of this bill," she said.
NCP MP Supriya Sule demanded that the bill should be immediately implemented. "Let's make a constitutional amendment to show our commitment to SC/ST and OBC. Unless we have delimitation and census we can't implement it so what is this special session?... The date of next census is indeterminate, the date of next delimitation is indeterminate so how are we going to get it," Ms Sule said.
Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra said it should be renamed as "women's reservation rescheduling bill" and asserted that what was needed was action not "the placebo of legislatively-mandated procrastination".
DMK MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi also made a similar demand.
"How long should we wait before this bill can be implemented. We have seen it can easily be implemented in the coming elections. This bill is not just an act of reservation but an act of removing bias and injustice and if you do not remove the clause which says after delimitation then there is no point, because we do not know till when this inordinate delay will go on," she said.
Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal said if there is no final date on its implementation, then what was the urgency to bring it in this session. "You have brought a bill which will not give the rights to women in the next 5-6 years," she said.
Union minister Smriti Irani said the opposition demand that the bill be implemented 'immediately' is unwarranted and wondered whether it is their wish to not follow constitutional process.
Ms Irani, who represents Amethi constitutuency, also hit out at opposition parties such as the Samajwadi Party for their demand for reservation for minorities and said they do not know that reservation based on religion is "prohibited" under the Constitution.
Among others, women lawmakers, who took part in the debate were Sumalatha Ambareesh, Sarmishta Sethi, Jaskaur Meena, Dimple Yadav (Samajwadi), Sandhya Ray (BJP), Navneet Ravi Rana, Veena Devi, Sunita Duggal, S. Jothimani, Bhawana Gawali (Patil), Sangeeta Azad, Rajashree Mallick, Geeta Viswanath Vanga, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar (TMC), former Minister and NPP member Agatha K Sangma, and Satabdi Roy, also from Trinamool Congress.
The other two ministers to intervene were Minister of State for Health Bharati Pawar and Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Anupriya Patel. Ms Patel, a member of the Apna Dal, a BJP ally, said the demand of the opposition is not wrong and it is a "serious issue" as women belonging to backward classes are marginalised.
"In our society, women belonging to backward classes are marginalised. Their challenges are different and more, and hence the demand for reservation keeps coming," Ms Patel said.
BJP's first speaker surprisingly was a man. Nishikant Dubey from Jharkhand. He credited the entire movement especially during the initial years in 1996-97 to BJP's late leader Sushma Swaraj and communist veteran Geeta Mukherjee of CPI.
"It is both my pride and my shame as I stand here in India's Parliament speaking on a women's reservation bill. It is my pride that I belong to the All India Trinamool Congress, a party that sent 37 per cent women among its members to Parliament, but it is my chagrin that I belong to a Lok Sabha that on aggregate has only 15 per cent of its people as women, far below the global average of 26.5 per cent and also below the Asian regional average of 21 per cent," said vocal TMC MP, Mahua Moitra.
In 17th Lok Sabha, there are only two Muslim women members and both from TMC, she said.
Ms Moitra said, "We do not know if and actually when we will have 33 per cent women sitting in the Lok Sabha because the date of the next census is indeterminate, and the date of the delimitation exercise is doubly indeterminate."
"Women's reservation is dependent on two totally indeterminate dates, can there be a greater jumla. Forget 2024, this may not be possible in 2029," she said.
"The population of OBCs in India is more than 50 per cent, but their representation in Lok Sabha is 22 per cent. The population of Muslim women in India is 7 per cent, while their representation in Parliament is 0.7 per cent. So wouldn't you give them representation?" Owaisi asked.
Earlier today, Owaisi opposed the women's reservation bill saying it would provide reservation only to "savarna women" (upper caste women).
"The purpose behind this bill was to give representation to women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies. However, there are OBC and Muslim women, who remain under-represented. So, wouldn't you give reservation to them?" he questioned.
"Will you not give representation to the ones for whom you are bringing the law? We voted against it so that they would know that there were two MPs who were fighting for the inclusion of the OBC and the Muslim women," he said outside Parliament.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that women have again been betrayed in the male-dominated parliament.
Harsimrat Kaur Badal said on the Women's Reservation Bill, "Devil in the detail came across...The census was to be held in 2021 and now 2023 is about to end and it hasn't been done yet and we don't know when will it happen. After the census, delimitation will take place and then this Reservation Bill will be implemented...Why did you bring this bill when you're not implementing it?... This male-dominated parliament betrayed women."
Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that if the centre could implement demonetisation, lockdown and GST bill overnight then it could have easily implemented Women's Reservation Bill without any delay but the motive is not clear.
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“After 75 years of independence, we have 14 per cent women in the Lok Sabha which comes to 78. In the first Lok Sabha there were 24 women MPs. This is a barely 9 per cent rise in 75 years. Even the speed of a bullock cart is more,” said the Akali Dal MP, adding that half of the state assemblies were yet to see women representatives.
“Since 1885 for the first time, the Census has been delayed for two years. We do not know how long it will be delayed. Today there is no final date as to when women will get 33 per cent reservation. If that was the case, what was the urgency to bring the Bill?” she asked.
Dr. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar of Trinamool Congress raised the issue of atrocities against women by demanding strong action against the perpetrators. Supriya Sule of NCP demanded the government provide reservations for SC, ST, and OBC under the Women Reservation Bill.
Echoing the same view, Dimple Yadav of the Samajwadi Party asked the question of whether the provisions of this bill will be applicable to Rajya Sabha and the Vidhan Parishad. She also raised concern over the immediate implementation of the provisions of the bill before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
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This was a much needed exercise. The bill has been delayed for long strewn with much hoopla whenever the government of the day tried to present it before the lower house for its approval
ReplyDeleteActually if one looks into the real intentions, the UPA governments were never interested in getting this bill become law because it wanted to keep its vote bank happy. Giving more seats and say to women is against Islamic thinking. It was quite expected on September 20 when the two who voted against were both Muslim MPs representing AIMIM. The Hyderabad-based party chief Asaduddin Owasi and his colleague Imtiaz Jaleel were the expected naysayers.
No wonder they stuck to their party line. Owasi is all powerful no doubt. Jaleel is an upstart in the murky world of politics I knew him as a bright TV journalist with NDTV. He used to cover important events in Pune. My first introduction with him was during a sports press conference . I never realized he would become so radical as the years passed by. It was a shock to Pune's journalistic community when he announced his decision to join politics and contest elections. - Kat Patil, Pune