India: A quota for women in Parliament

Jayanthi Natarajan

The Asian Age

Male members of Parliament are shrieking with horror, said Jayanthi Natarajan. After more than a decade kicking around in committee, the bill to establish a minimum quota of seats for women in Parliament is ready to come up for a vote. The reaction is not pretty.

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Sharad Yadav, head of the Janata Dal party, announced “that he would consume poison” if the bill passed in its present form. Indians have become so cynical about politics, however, “that even this atrocious statement did not attract more than passing notice.” And really, that was just one of the “ugly scenes” that men who oppose the bill have caused. Some MPs have ripped up copies of the bill on the floor of the House. Others “physically attacked women members” of Parliament who were trying to speak on the bill. The more creative of the male opponents are now coming up with “contrived and fantastic arguments” against the bill, saying, for example, that it would result in nepotism, as unqualified female relatives of politicians would fill the reserved seats. That theory “might have held water if most of the men in Parliament were not relatives of other men.”

Surely the men don’t really believe that women would be more corrupt than the MPs we have now? “It is truly extraordinary how arguments regarding suitability, talent, and capability are advanced when the subject happens to be women—while the same is never, ever considered in the case of men.”