16 comments

• Sad Truth

  The women’s reservation as introduced currently is a scam. It does not empower women but enfeeble the most vital democratic institution, namely the parliament. Why?

  Constitutional impropriety: The founding fathers of the constitution did not envisage a ‘proportional’ representation but representation of the people on the basis of population as a whole without any consideration for their cast, creed or gender. To provide proportional reservation on the basis that women account for about 50% of the electorate, is to change the ‘character’ of the constitution and hence it is ‘ultra vires’ or beyond the power of the parliament. In the alternative if it is argued that the structure of the parliament is not altered but only grouped a set of seats exclusively for women, then such an amendment is violative of the principle of equality and hence still unconstitutional. This alone should close the arguments in favour of the bill but there are more ;-0)

  Logical impropriety: Women have advanced a lot in terms of their status in the society and much more need to be achieved. But by any stretch of imagination, women of today can’t be deemed worse of than the women of 1947. So, when the founding fathers of the constitution did not see it fit to provide proportional reservation for women then, it can not be logical to argue for such now after 60 years. If the argument is that the reservation is to attract more women to the democratic process, would you support the same argument to attract the Maoist insurgents into the democratic path from their current approach of violence?

  Moral impropriety: One can not apportion something that does not belong to them. If it belongs to another, full consent and participation of the owner should be a prerequisite before any such action. The parliament is the property of the whole nation and it can not be apportioned in any fashion other than through due process and procedures articulated in the constitution.

  Ethical impropriety: Elected members have to act in the national interest and any action in self interest is unethical. Not only that the actions have to be ethical, they have to appear as ethical as well. While persuading RJD chief to support the bill, media clips established that the UPA chair person said, “You have 7 daughters and hence you should support this bill”. If the main architect of the bill openly admits that it should be supported for self-interest, the question whether or not it has any other side interest does not arise in ascertaining its unethical status. Besides, the fact is that the bill itself is unconstitutional as explained above.

  Economic impropriety: While attaching the highest priority for this unconstitutional bill, which will eventually be knocked out on legal challenge, the UPA proved its poor management ability and consequently delayed or diminished economic productivity from other more important legislations waiting to be introduced, debated and enacted.

  Cost-benefit impropriety: An amendment to the constitution is the costliest option in terms of procedures, protocols and management. Many other NGOs working for real empowerment of women have demonstrated that it was for the political parties to do it on their own without any wastage of parliament resources.

  Continued from above….

  Structural impropriety: The structure of the bill is ambiguous at best. None of the media reports highlighted what is the specific measurable objective of the bill, how that will be measured, what is the benchmark against it will be compared to assess the success/failure of the bill, etc. The only objective touted out is the ‘empowerment of women’ slogan, which is at best vague and does not qualify to be a professional job with proper structure as expected from the highest law makers of this land. We do not know how it will be managed, what the improvements expected over the years is, when it will be measured and what happens after 15 years.

  Procedural impropriety: Though technically it was allowed, the bill was first introduced in the RS where it does not have any bearing and if the LS rejected it eventually, the RS time is wasted.

  Practical impropriety: Do the political parties practice what they preach? If the UPA or any other political part were so interested in women’s empowerment and ‘really’ believed that it could be achieved by making it easier for more women to enter parliament, none of them seems to have made any efforts to bring women into their administrative structure either formally or informally before articulating such reservation at the law making halls.

  Strategic impropriety: Rather than hoping for the best, no credible risk analysis of the proposed bill, their implications, mitigation plans etc, were published, no debates seem to have conducted or transparent records made available to the public to comment upon.

  The list can go on and on. In short, it is a con job to fool the naïve women of this country along with anyone who cares for the women’s advancement. If something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is more likely that it is indeed a duck. Please do not be fooled.

  15 March 2010, 10:03 am

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• edsley

  Its interesting that at the time when Women got their rights to permanent commission in the Indian Army, the women’ reservation bill had to be discussed on the grounds of equality.

  Not that i have anything against women, but it is the mere rational of reservation! Its like wanting to overcome the guilt of years of injustice., that we almost always go overboard a a society and sow the seeds for another skewed social effect.

  If you have read the Mandal commission report, you would appreciate the rationality and subjectivity with which the statements have been forcefully coined and would make you believe that it was indeed the case. just like reservation within bureaucracy was not advised (though practiced) on the justification of progressively diluting quality of high technology / higher education and so on in the mandal commission report, it is important that mere sentiments towards an issue should not be allowed to let us give ourselves, biased rules and diluted futures.

  the ideals of empowerment is eclipsing the very foundation of democratic progeny in India. the basic pillars of democracy as said by the constitution: executive, judiciary & legislature should not be diluted by compromised merit and here i do include the current reservations as well.

  but here we are one year after the general elections and most ministers have not done anything, and so they want a poll point to fight for and add something to their ‘did do’ list. if our national parties indeed did want reservation for so long, then they should have first practiced it internally.

  the single largest misnomer would be that women would support women, and they would preserve their rights and thereby allowing trickling down of things and all the jazz… also the assumption that current India still subjugates women is probably too far stretched for this argument. at the end of the day, the poor bloke like you are me are the ones caught even this time between the fights of the high and strong.

  reservation: does anybody really care about you?

  i may not be the first to oppose the reservation and be termed as a male chauvinist, but that is fundamentally the reason why many op-posers fail from orating their opinion in fear of, having themselves branded so! needless to say this has become more a political issue as most issues, instead of the argument of building a better society.

  level the playing fields! give preference to merit. and in this merit if women get 100% of the seats i don’t think anybody has any problem whatsoever, but we need to have a more widespread debate across the society, and let parties at their own discretion have their own standards and not impose it on lesser mortals like us.

  15 March 2010, 15:29 pm

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• Ur Enjoyment

  SoniaG wants to empower the nation!

  Men and women of India, lend me your years,
  Let’s praise the lord and wish the queen with cheers,
  We will soon bury our democracy in grand fashion,
  And start putting quotacracy in full motion
  For SoniaG wants to empower the nation!

  Dr Kalam did not find us empowering,
  So he sent our bill for profit back enquiring,
  We were not amused by his checking,
  So we had to send him packing,
  For SoniaG wants to empower the nation!

  Mr. Shivraj Patil is the most pliant and cool,
  But it was rejected by Mr Karat the fool,
  We played the women card as the tool,
  Presto! Everything fell in place like stool,
  For SoniaG wants to empower the nation!

  The CEC has been a thorn since Sheshan,
  And blocked all our plans so far with passion,
  We moved along with great caution,
  But no more; now we are on our mission,
  For SoniaG wants to empower the nation!

  When we put an admirer as the CEC,
  Things started to get real easy,
  Wouldn’t care if his records look messy,
  Ignore such concerns like gibberish of the crazy,
  For SoniaG wants to empower the nation!

  While the president’s wearing our jacket,
  And with the CEC in our pocket,
  Let us put the power plug in the socket,
  Pass women’s empowerment bill as a rocket,
  For SoniaG wants to empower the nation!

  The communists never trusted the constitution,
  The BJP is committing suicide as the opposition,
  The rest are only interested in weird distribution,
  So, we can destroy the parliament as an institution,
  For SoniaG wants to empower the nation!

  Amen! Brutus is an honourable man!!

  16 March 2010, 9:41 am

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• mrinal kayal

  If such type of bill is required then it should be basis on POOR and DALIT communities women. Otherwise those women will be powered who have got already power and they won’t work for the POOR people(i.e.for 70% of the INDIANS). If this type of reservation really works then SC,ST,OBC reservation might shine INDIA so far. They failed because these are based on COMMUNITY basis not on ECONOMY based. So this reservation should change a little.

  16 March 2010, 14:28 pm

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• ajay tomer

  i totally oppse it
  ………I do not support reservation of any kind………for anybody except maybe for the handicapped…………..a woman who needs reservation to get into the parliament won’t be a fighter……….we need someone who gets into the parliament……….to fight for the people….to fight for the right cause………not someone who will need the crutches of reservation……….those who can make it ….make it without reservation………

  Reservation for women will just become another PAWN in the hands of the corrupt politicians……….who wants that…….not me atleast….

  10 April 2010, 7:32 am

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• Kaushik Biswas

  What is the present state of the bill in the Parliament? Is the Government at all eager to pass it or just wants to let the debate continue? There’s no more update in the media too!

  29 December 2010, 23:06 pm

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