From CK Nayak
New Delhi, Sep 19: Parliament is all set to pass the much-awaited Women’s Reservation Bill with 33 per cent reservation of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, but the Northeast where the number of female legislators is slightly over half of even the national average still has a long road to traverse as far as women empowerment is concerned.
Contrary to popular belief, out of a total of 466 seats in the state assemblies of the Northeastern states, only around 5 per cent are currently occupied by women. The percentage of women members in the autonomous district councils which are often considered as “states within states” is further less.
According to the official data, the share of women MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha stands at 14.94 per cent and 14.05 per cent, respectively. At the same time, the average number of women MLAs in assemblies across the nation accounts for only eight per cent.
In total as many as 19 of state assemblies have less than 10 per cent women lawmakers, according to a government data. Interestingly these laggard states included many of the mainland provinces like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
After the last three assembly polls in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura and some by-elections, women have bettered their past record. 14 women were elected to the three state assemblies, overtaking the tally of only six women legislators in the previous houses.
In the February assembly polls, nine women including a sitting Union minister were elected to the Tripura Assembly followed by three in Meghalaya (one less than the previous assembly) and two in Nagaland. In each state, a woman legislator was made cabinet minister and entrusted with important departments.
Ampareen Lyngdoh is the lone woman cabinet minister in the NPP-led MDA 2.0 Government in Meghalaya. Pratima Bhowmik, the MP from Tripura, is a Union minister in PM Modi’s Ministry.
Creating history in 60 years of statehood, two women — Hekhani Jakhalu and Salhoutuonuo Kruse of the ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party — were elected to the Nagaland Assembly for the first time. Again, for the first time the male dominated society of Nagaland elected a woman Rajya Sabha member, S Phangnon Konyak.
In the February assembly elections in the three Northeastern states, women voters’ turnout was also higher than men. Unlike other mainland states, for the past many years, women voters have also outnumbered their male counterparts in the electoral roles of several NE states.
Mizoram in the last 50 years saw only one woman minister and three female MLAs, considered to be the worst among the Northeastern states. Currently, there are no women ministers in two of the seven Northeastern states — Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh.
Despite their better gender ratios than the national average and matrilineal societies, few women enter public life in the Northeast. Women’s representation has only marginally improved in Parliament and Legislative Assemblies in the last 70 years. The first Lok Sabha in 1952 had 4.4 per cent women members while the present one has 15 per cent.
By 1988, the National Perspective Plan for Women: 1988-2000 supported a 30 per cent reservation for women, the first government document to set the proportion for women’s reservation at one-third. It paved the way for the 73rd and 74th amendments, which Rajiv Gandhi piloted, but the law was enacted after his death.
During the negotiations on reservation for women in the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), then Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang had reportedly told Rajiv Gandhi’s aide Mani Shankar Aiyar, the pioneer in pushing women into Panchayati Raj: “If you force us to have women’s reservation, we will join China.”
Until now, over 1.4 million women have been elected to the PRIs.
It is interesting to note that only 15 of the 389 members of the Constituent Assembly, which framed the Constitution, were women. But they stridently opposed any reservation for women, arguing that equality alone could be the basis for mutual respect and understanding between genders.