It has taken nearly three decades for India to finally shed its fear of short-haired women. But the Indian political system has still not woken up to the principle of intersectionality among women. With the Narendra Modi government’s women’s reservation Bill in the new Parliament, a beleaguered political campaign rose from its ashes and has now become a reality.
A distasteful remark by Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal-United (JD-U) about ‘parkati mahila’ (short-haired women) derailed the Women’s Reservation Bill in 1996. But whether we liked it or not, it was an important moment of reckoning for the women’s movement in India. Were Indian women ready to accept the lack of caste diversity in its movement and leadership? For too long, the movement in India has been caught in an ‘urban rescuer of rural India’ complex. And that opportunity for soul-searching has, once again, been lost today.
The issue that tripped the Bill in 1996 and 2010 has still not been addressed. Do we recognise the need for sub-quotas for women from other marginalised groups, in addition to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes? Will the party tickets continue to go to urban and privileged women?
Sharad Yadav had opposed the Bill moved by the HD Deve Gowda government by famously abusing privileged caste, upper-class, English-speaking urban women as ‘parkati mahila’. By calling out the caste and class divisions among women, Yadav drove a wedge in the campaign to bring more women into the world’s largest democracy. At that time, what Yadav said had horrified women lawmakers. Many women advocates of the Bill came out and said things like “Don’t divide women along caste lines” and “We are women, we are one”.
Savarna women aren’t spokespersons of feminism
That was then. It was easier to demonise the Yadav leaders of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Samajwadi Party (SP) and JD-U as having backward, regressive and misogynistic mindsets. Leaders from these parties had come to national attention during that decade and challenged the political privilegentsia like never before. It was also facile to pretend that women didn’t believe in or practice caste discrimination and that only men did. Or at least that’s how the story went.
Roughly three decades later, India has changed, thanks mostly to the social media pushback against caste and savarna feminism. There’s a greater understanding and acknowledgement today about caste and religious divides in the women’s movement. Nothing is more outdated than the claim that women are a homogenous monolith. Urban, privileged caste women cannot be the sole leaders and spokespersons of Indian feminism anymore.
And yet, the BJP-Congress bipartisanship on the Bill will see it through without any mention of Other Backward Classes. Only the SCs and STs have received a sub-reservation in the Bill, which is a constitutional requirement.
“Perhaps God has chosen me for this sacred work,” said Modi while presenting the Bill titled ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ in the Lok Sabha. “On this historic occasion in the new Parliament building, as the first proceeding of the House, the beginning of all the parliamentarians opening gateways for women power is being done with this crucial decision.”
Even in 2010, there was BJP and Left support for the Congress’ Bill. Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the Congress party, had said after an uproar in Parliament: “Of course, we understand their compulsion, their problems. But it is my hope that they will understand and will look at the larger picture. Why can’t women, after all, be empowered?”
Today, the OBC-centric political parties are much weakened, and their presence in Parliament does not have the same veto as before.
Also read: Modi’s Women’s Reservation Bill has an OBC-sized oversight. Undermines inclusivity, fairness
Global churn for inclusivity
Back when India was debating the existence of caste division among the women’s movement in the 1990s, it was already two decades since the largest women’s organisation, the National Organisation for Women (NOW) in the United States, got its first Black president – Aileen Hernandez. This was at a time when NOW’s membership was predominantly White and middle-class.
In the late 1990s, Canada was going through a similar churn. Its largest women’s group, the National Council for Women of Canada, elected an Indian-origin woman as its head, and all hell broke loose. Many White feminists grumbled that a minority cannot represent the interests and grievances of the majority of Canadian women. Many inconvenient questions, like the ones in India, were raised about who represents women adequately.
Minority women began to say “nothing about us without us”. These conversations were already bubbling around the world. So, it was incredibly tone-deaf of Indian women leaders like Brinda Karat, Sonia Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj at that time to say that asking for a guarantee for OBC women was almost akin to an anti-women agenda.
Also read: ‘God has chosen me to empower women,’ says Modi as govt tables Women’s Reservation Bill in LS
Why India needs women MPs
An alternative was offered. Why not go the Scandinavian way? Political parties in Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark have adopted candidate quotas for women. Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was India’s defence minister at that time, proposed a similar way out. If you can’t bring in the law for OBC women sub-quota, at least give party-wise quotas. Many voiced a fear that parties would end up giving tickets to women in weak constituencies that had no chance of winning. Still, no party did.
So, the question hung mid-air. While their demand for an OBC sub-quota was a valid recognition of historical marginalisation, were parties like SP, RJD and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) calling for OBC sub-quota in the women’s reservation Bill just as a facade to block women’s entry in Parliament?
Either way, this caste-blind women’s revolution got delayed by 27 years by some intersectionality questions. Quite needlessly, it appears.
Now that the Modi government has moved the Bill again, it is fair to ask what will really change if 33 per cent of lawmakers are women. Simplistic analysis will offer arguments like we will have a better world, more inclusive leadership and decision-making style. Some may even say more women leaders will mean less hate and less corruption. No, let us not put all that heavy burden on women. There is enough evidence to show women are as capable of corruption, warmongering and hate as men are. It’s the nature of power.
We need more women MPs not because they will be better leaders than men but because they deserve to have a stake in power and governance. Period. It’s a question of representation, equity and parity.
Rama Lakshmi is Editor, Opinion and Ground Reports at ThePrint. She tweets @RamaNewDelhi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)