The Supreme Court’s recent observations in the context of a plea for the immediate implementation of women’s reservation in Parliament and state assemblies point to an uncomfortable truth: despite forming nearly half of the population and the passage of the Women’s Reservation Act, women remain peripheral to political power. The legislation, passed in 2023, was hailed as a landmark in India’s democratic evolution. Yet its potential remains trapped — wilfully? — in procedural limbo. The law ties its enforcement to the next census and delimitation exercise, both of which are yet to begin. The government’s reluctance to implement a bill it proudly passed reveals that women’s representation is treated with tokenism. The figures speak for themselves. Women occupy barely 14% of the current Lok Sabha and 17% of the Rajya Sabha. These numbers lag far behind the global average of 26.5%: even democracies younger than India have done better on this count. Successive governments have been at fault when it comes to correcting the gender imbalance in India’s legislatures: between 2009-2014, women accounted for 10.86% members in the Lok Sabha. Policymaking has thus been hostage to India’s conservative — regressive — social mores when it comes to granting greater political representation to women.
There is another irony that cannot be missed. Women’s marginalisation in Parliament continues even as they emerge as a distinct and vocal electoral constituency. Women voters — Bihar is one instance — often outnumber men in voter turnouts. Political parties have responded to this change by designing electoral sops, from free bus rides to subsidies on gas and electricity to financial stipends, to woo this constituency. The focus though is on limiting the role of women to being beneficiaries of welfare, and not decision-makers in the House. This despite the fact that studies from across the world have shown that women legislators are more likely to raise issues of social welfare, health, and education — public concerns that should ideally decide electoral outcomes. In the course of the current proceedings, the highest court made a radical observation: given women constitute the “largest minority”, should they not be given representation without reservation? This reflection is not unwarranted given India’s ground realities. Women’s political reservation continues to be dilly-dallied with by a House with disproportionate representation from men. Such dogged resistance and their consequent bottlenecks must be met with unconventional resolutions.