New Delhi: In these politically polarised times, a rare consensus emerged among politicians from the Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party and the Aam Aadmi Party.
“Women belong to only one caste, and that is womanhood,” BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi, an IAS officer turned member of Lok Sabha, said, as the audience at India International Centre, Delh,i nodded. “It is a war for women to be in politics, and we have to fight with knowledge, experience, and grace.”
Sarangi was a part of the panel discussion held on the theme ‘The Role of Women in Politics in India: Then and Now’.
In attendance were Sarangi, a BJP Lok Sabha member from Bhubaneswar, Atishi Marlena, former Delhi Chief Minister and senior AAP leader, and Iqra Hasan, Samajwadi Party MP. Sonia Singh, former Editorial Director and anchor, NDTV Group, chaired the event.
The room filled quickly, with academics, bureaucrats, students and party workers, inching closer to the front rows. It was unusual because women, across party lines, shared a table to speak not as rivals, but rather as colleagues to confront their shared struggles.
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The fight for identity
Kairana MP Iqra Hasan said she was particularly proud to have her college principal, Meenakshi Gopinath, in the crowd. Hasan is a graduate of Lady Shri Ram College. The spirit of feminism was a lesson from her principal. She taught her how to be a “strategic feminist.”
When questions were raised about why she covers her head, Hasan noted that politics still measured women by appearances.
“I was asked why I dress a certain way, and why I cover my head,” Hasan said. Before Hasan entered public life and politics, she did not cover her head.
“I chose to cover my head because it puts the matter to rest, and we can focus on important things,” Hasan asserted.
Hasan is a minority within a minority, and she notes that the representation of Muslim women in Parliament is among the lowest.
The Lok Sabha has 543 seats, out of which only 74 are occupied by women. That is just 13 per cent.
“But we don’t need tokenism,” Hasan said. For her, the idea of female representation in politics isn’t just about numbers on paper, but a more effective and organic leadership.
While the parliament has passed the 33 per cent women reservation bill, the implementation, Hasan said, is of utmost importance.
“I don’t know why it was delayed, maybe due to the census and delimitations.”
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Standing up to taunts
While Hasan’s story was about perception, former Delhi chief minister Atishi’s story was about being persistent.
Atishi knows the easiest way to discourage a woman in the field of politics is by asking questions about her character.
Without naming who her political opponent was in the Delhi Assembly elections held earlier this year, she said, “I fought a man who was sexist and misogynistic.”
Her opponent in the polls was BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri. “He passed a lot of comments, and there was gundagardi,” she said.
But Atishi, who heads Delhi’s Kalkaji constituency, saw how women left their homes to become party volunteers, to participate in the grassroots campaigning, during the Delhi Assembly elections, despite the sexist comments against women in the public domain.
“They would otherwise not leave their homes,” she recalled, adding that most of the women were from lower and middle-class backgrounds.
Her party volunteers even got calls from their husbands, fathers-in-law, brothers regarding their participation.
The men told them, “The women have too much freedom, now they roam around with MLA madam, and think they have become MLAs.”
“Despite all of it, the women managed to come. They raised families, kids, and stepped out of their comfort zones. They campaigned for me, for my party,” Atishi shared.
As leaders, Atishi said, women politicians have a responsibility to create a safe environment for other women.
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Beyond the numbers
Aparajita Sarangi doesn’t mince words when she speaks.
She tells the conference room to have a more realistic approach toward the representation of women in politics. In the 17th Lok Sabha, there were only 78 women. This declined during the 18th Lok Sabha, when only 74 women managed to secure seats in the parliament. But we’ve come a long way from when there were only in 1957, there were 22 women leaders in the Lok Sabha, she reminded the audience.
“So from 22, we managed to reach 78, and now, down to 74, this is 78 years after India’s Independence,” Sarangi said. When she finished, the room turned silent.
“Is this the right scenario?” she questioned.
Sarangi provided examples of other countries with lower development indexes that fare better with representation. She mentions Rwanda, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Nepal, and Cuba.
While both Rwanda and Bolivia have more than 60 per cent seat reservation for women in their parliament, Nicaragua has at least 53 per cent. Cuba has more than 55 per cent. Nepal has 33 per cent. India stands at only 13.6 per cent.
Hasan added that just filling the seats is not enough. The quality of the candidates is as important.
Without naming the party, she said, a party with 40 per cent seat reservation didn’t know who to nominate and asked a political consultant to pick out women to fill seats.
“This is the kind of scenario we’re trying to avoid. We women need to open up avenues for other women. We have to bring change at the ground level. We have to take up 33 per cent of the space designated for us by fighting for it,” Hasan said.
Atishi ends with what she said is the real question.
“When women reach positions of power, we should ask, what is it that we can do after that? Because it is not just enough to get there,” she said.
Women need to be in decision-making roles, “it is then, when they will create more women leaders.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)