India: A quota for women in Parliament

By The Week Staff

last updated 8 January 2015

Jayanthi Natarajan

The Asian Age

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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.”

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