Representative democracy rests on a simple principle — legislatures should mirror the diversity of the people they govern. In India, with its 1.4 billion citizens, the absence of women in lawmaking has long been a democratic deficit. Women make up nearly half the electorate but their numbers in the Lok Sabha have rarely crossed 15%.
The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023, better known as the Women’s Reservation Bill or the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, was passed with near-unanimity. It was a rare moment of political consensus. On paper, the bill guarantees one-third (33%) of all seats in Parliament and state assemblies to women. But the celebrations were premature. The law’s fine print leaves its implementation hostage to a future census and a delimitation exercise, effectively pushing women’s reservation into an indefinite future.
Women’s representation remains stubbornly low. In the 17th Lok Sabha, just 14.4% of the members were women, a number that slipped to 13.6% in the 18th Lok Sabha. Historically, the share of women in Parliament has barely grown since 1952, when less than 5% of the first Lok Sabha were women. The picture is even starker for women from minority communities — in over seven decades of elections, only 20 of nearly 7,500 members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha have been Muslim women. In five of the 17 Lok Sabhas, there were no Muslim women members at all.
In the Rajya Sabha, the numbers are even harder to pin down. With one-third of members retiring every two years, women’s presence fluctuates constantly. This rotational design makes it harder to establish steady representation. Even when women get into Parliament, their participation lags. In the 17th Lok Sabha, women members of Parliament participated in 39 debates on average, compared to 46 for men. This imbalance is starkly visible in key debates. For example, during the debate on the Waqf Bill, only 5 of 61 speakers (8%) were women and they collectively spoke for just 32 minutes (3.5%) of the total debate time. This pattern holds across parties. The BJP, despite having 31 women members of Parliament and 145 minutes in the debate, gave its two women speakers only 14 minutes combined. Similarly, the Congress’s lone female speaker received just 4.5 minutes out of the 92 minutes allotted to the party.
The same imbalance was evident during the debate on the Women’s Reservation Bill itself. Of the 60 members who spoke, only 27 (45%) were women. This shows that even in a landmark debate on gender equity, women’s voices fell short of 50%. Academic research further confirms this, showing that between 1980 and 2009, women members of Parliament asked 24% fewer parliamentary questions than men. The irony is that attendance is not the issue. In the 17th Lok Sabha, men averaged 79% attendance and women 77%, virtually the same. Women show up but they simply are not called upon as often.
Three dynamics drive this disparity. Party control over speaking time leads to a preference for senior leaders and topic pigeonholing — women are often confined to issues of ‘women’s empowerment’. Weak support structures within parties can leave women as proxy representatives for male relatives, limiting their independent space. The outcome is attendance without agency, presence without power.
The biggest flaw in the WRB lies in its timeline, which ties implementation to two sequential steps: the first census after the law takes effect and a subsequent delimitation exercise. The bill stipulates that seats will be rotated after each delimitation so no constituency remains permanently reserved. It also explicitly states that the quota does not extend to the Rajya Sabha or state legislative councils.
The linkage to future events, a masterclass in legislative ambiguity, effectively postpones implementation indefinitely. The last census was in 2011; the 2021 round was postponed due to Covid-19. The government has announced the next one will be carried out before March 1, 2027. Census enumeration itself can take years to process and publish, and a new Act of Parliament will still be needed to constitute the Delimitation Commission. History shows how slow this process can be. The delimitation based on the 2001 census took seven years to complete. The exercise is not just data-intensive but also politically sensitive since redrawing boundaries and deciding which seats to reserve disrupt entrenched strongholds. Such decisions easily stall the process, making a 2029 implementation appear overly optimistic. Even if the law were implemented tomorrow,
it is not clear that more seats for women would translate into more voice for them. While Parliament’s Business Advisory Committee sets debate times, party leadership ultimately decides who speaks and for how long.
Reservation is necessary but not sufficient. Translating numbers into real influence will require political will. Parties must adopt internal quotas not only in candidate selection so women are fairly represented across constituencies but also in leadership positions, from which decisions on tickets, funding and speaking time are made. Parliament should adopt gender-balanced speaking rules and women must be included in and entrusted with the chairpersonship of key committees such as finance, defence and foreign affairs. Additionally, stronger systems of training, mentorship and financial support are essential to help women legislators lead independently rather than as proxies.
The Women’s Reservation Bill may deliver a “critical mass” of women, but India needs ‘critical actors’ with power and independence. Without systemic reforms, more seats for women may not mean more voice.
Fauzia Khan is a member of the Rajya Sabha (Nationalist Congress Party — Sharadchandra Pawar) and Garima Panigrahi is a public policy consultant