Women’s Reservation Bill - 33% Is that enough??

The bill proposed in the parliament for legal provisions for making the reservation for Women in the parliament and assembly is underway in the current UPA government, this idea was actually initiated in 1992 by the then Government of India.

In its current form the bill envisages reserving ~33% seats in the parliament, which has its supporters in the Govt, opposition etc. The sole opposition time being comes from the Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party. You may be surprised, but I actually support his opposition to the bill. Women empowerment in India is a requirement but the government with this bill is actually going the wrong way and not going to do any good to women in India.

Reserving almost 180+ seats in the parliament for Women is just too big a number. And this reservation will add no value to the very cause of Social Equality for women in India and niether do we need Women Political Empowerment in India (I will elaborate more on this in some time).

Politics in India is a very tricky profession. This very idea of Women's reservation bill has two very serious flaws.

First, the question is will the Women Reservation Bill add any value to the cause of Social inclusion, equality for Women in this country? I think not, because once the law of reservation comes into action the very constituencies reserved for women will have wives, sisters, daughters or some times the daughters-in-law of the former parliamentarians and/or influential (today this list not only include the politicians but also industrialists, XXXXX barons etc) "MALES", which will eventually make them the DEFACTO parliamentarians.

We have seen this happening in india a million times, in Bihar (The CM issue by You know who...), in Karnataka (Constituencies vacated by husband to contest parliament was later won by his wife :) ) and there are many such examples which I need not elaborate. In conclusion this will just lead to more relatives of the existing politicians in the "So called Active" politics and will add absolutely zilch value to the Woman's Social Equality.

Second, Do we really need Woman's political empowerment in India? President of India (Head of the state), Chief of the Ruling party INC (& of course the defacto Prime Minister ;) ), CM of Delhi (Capital of India and Heart of Indian politics), CM of Uttar Pradesh (Most populous and largest state of India with 80 Parliament seats) and many powerful "ex and future" CM's (Tamil Nadu, Rajhisthan, Madya Pradesh etc) are all Women. The funny things is the power ratio actually tilts in favour of Women.

If you need Women empowerment than you need to do something else and not reserve seats for the Wives of the existing politicians. First, the education of the girls should be of the foremost importance in india. Educate girl child, make it compulsory, make the education for girls cheap or if possible free. This will eventually lead to more litracy in india.

If you want to empower women, then encourage women employment. The idea is to make women financially independent. Today in india more than 80% of women in the age group of 20+ years are financially dependent on either their fathers or after the marriage, on their husbands, who actually guide their entire future and in fact their entire life according to their own "Male" understanding without any regard to the individual in question.

So according to me this is where we need to work & unless our very "so called" values and idea of "male chauvinism" doesn't end, "Women Empowerment and Equality" will never see the light of the day even by reserving 90% of the parliament seats. The defacto rulers will be the male relatives of those women and even if those women politicians are independent and strong (As currently many are!!!) this bill will do absolutely no good for Women empowerment in India.