{"id":33465,"date":"2023-03-16T11:16:26","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T05:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=33465"},"modified":"2025-04-19T22:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T17:06:13","slug":"reservation-for-women-in-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/reservation-for-women-in-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Reservation for Women in Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>History of Political Reservation for Women<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Reservation for Women in Local Bodies<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the Women\u2019s Reservation Bill?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How many women are in Parliament?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Arguments in Favor of the Women\u2019s Reservation Bill<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Arguments Against the Women\u2019s Reservation Bill<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>History of Political Reservation for Women<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The issue of reservation for women in politics can be traced back to the Indian national movement.<\/li>\n<li>In 1931, in their letter to the British Prime Minister, on the status of women in the new Constitution by three women\u2019s bodies, leaders <strong>Begum Shah Nawaz<\/strong> and <strong>Sarojini Naidu<\/strong> wrote, \u201c<i><strong>To seek any form of preferential treatment would be to violate the integrity of the universal demand of Indian women for absolute equality of political status<\/strong><\/i>.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The issue of women\u2019s reservation came up in Constituent Assembly debates as well, but it was rejected as being unnecessary.\n<ul>\n<li>It was assumed that a democracy would accord representation to all groups.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>However, in the following decades, it became clear that this was not to be the case.<\/li>\n<li>As a consequence, women\u2019s reservation became a recurrent theme in policy debates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Reservation for Women in Local Bodies<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>National Perspective Plan for Women<\/strong> recommended in 1988 that reservation be provided to women right from the level of the panchayat to that of Parliament.<\/li>\n<li>These recommendations paved the way for the historic enactment of the <strong>73<sup>rd<\/sup> and 74<sup>th<\/sup> Amendments to the Constitution<\/strong> which mandate all State governments to reserve \u2013\n<ul>\n<li>One-third of the seats for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions and<\/li>\n<li>One-third of the offices of the chairperson at all levels of the Panchayati Raj Institutions, and in urban local bodies.<\/li>\n<li>Within these seats, one-third are reserved for Scheduled Caste\/Scheduled Tribe women.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Many States such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Kerala have made legal provisions to ensure 50% reservation for women in local bodies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the Women\u2019s Reservation Bill?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Women\u2019s Reservation Bill <i><strong>proposes to reserve 33% of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies for women<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>It was first introduced in the Lok Sabha as the 81st Amendment Bill in September 1996.<\/li>\n<li>The Bill failed to get the approval of the House and lapsed with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha.<\/li>\n<li>The Bill was reintroduced in 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003 and 200. However, the Bill failed to receive majority votes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How many women are in Parliament?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><i><strong>Only about 14% of the members in Indian Parliament are women<\/strong><\/i>, the highest so far.<\/li>\n<li>According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, <i><strong>India has a fewer percentage of women in the lower House than its neighbors<\/strong><\/i> such as Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh \u2014 a dismal record.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Arguments in Favor of the Women\u2019s Reservation Bill<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Proponents of the Bill argue that <i><strong>affirmative action is imperative to better the condition of women since political parties are inherently patriarchal<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Second, despite the hopes of the leaders of the national movement, <i><strong>women are still under-represented in the Parliament<\/strong><\/i>.\n<ul>\n<li>Reservations, proponents believe, will ensure that women form a strong lobby in Parliament to fight for issues that are often ignored.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>There is now evidence that women as panchayat leaders have \u2013\n<ul>\n<li>Shattered social myths,<\/li>\n<li>Been more accessible than men,<\/li>\n<li>Controlled the stranglehold of liquor,<\/li>\n<li>Invested substantially in public goods such as drinking water,<\/li>\n<li>Helped other women express themselves better,<\/li>\n<li>Reduced corruption,<\/li>\n<li>Prioritized nutrition outcomes, and<\/li>\n<li>Changed the development agenda at the grassroots level.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Arguments Against the Women\u2019s Reservation Bill<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Opponents of reservation for women argue that <i><strong>the idea runs counter to the principle of equality enshrined in the Constitution<\/strong><\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>They say that women will not be competing on merit if there is reservation, which could lower their status in society.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Second<\/strong>, <i><strong>women are unlike, say, a caste group, which means that they are not a homogenous community<\/strong><\/i>.\n<ul>\n<li>Therefore, the same arguments made for caste-based reservation cannot be made for women.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Third<\/strong>, <i><strong>women\u2019s interests cannot be isolated from other social, economic and political strata<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fourth<\/strong>, some argue that <i><strong>reservation of seats in Parliament would restrict the choice of voters to women candidates<\/strong><\/i>.\n<ul>\n<li>This has led to suggestions of alternate methods including reservation for women in political parties and dual member constituencies (where constituencies will have two MPs, one of them being a woman).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fifth<\/strong>, as men hold primary power as well as key positions in politics, <i><strong>some have even argued that bringing women into politics could destroy the \u201cideal family\u201d<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is 103<sup>rd<\/sup> Constitutional Amendment Act?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The 103rd Amendment inserted Articles 15(6) and 16(6) in the Constitution to <strong>provide up to 10 per cent reservation to the economically weaker sections (EWS) among non-OBC and non-SC\/ST sections of the population<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2)<\/strong> <strong>Which was the first committee on OBC reservation?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Adhering to <strong>Article 340<\/strong> of the Constitution, the First Backward Classes Commission was set up by a presidential order on 29 January 1953 under the chairmanship of Kaka Kalelkar. It is also <strong>known as the First Backward Classes Commission, 1955 or the Kaka Kalelkar Commission<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/explained-on-reservation-for-women-in-politics\/article66624358.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Explained | Reservation for Women in Politics<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Video:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tn8ZloFVV6c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tn8ZloFVV6c<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Women\u2019s Reservation Bill aims to reserve 33% of seats in Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies for women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}