A bill in India to increase the number of female politicians in parliament has been rejected, despite independent studies showing the economic and social benefits of implementing the act.
Last Friday, the Indian government failed to pass the latest Women’s Reservation Bill, a legislation that sought to expand assemblies, increasing the overall number of seats that would have paved the way for one-third of seats to be reserved for women.
Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government said the new bill would speed up the implementation of female parliamentary quotas.
“Let all of us not miss this important opportunity to give reservation to women,” Modi said. “I have come to appeal to you – do not see this from a political lens, this is in national interest.”
The bill needed a two-thirds majority to pass, but failed, after 298 MPs voted in favour while 230 voted against.
The constitutional amendment proposed by BJP was struck down by the opposition, who argued that increasing the overall number of seats was merely Modi’s attempt to redraw the country’s electoral map, and his way of manipulating the system and getting more votes for his own party.
The rejection happened during a special sitting of parliament convened by Modi, who was hoping to fast-track a number of landmark bills that would overhaul India’s parliamentary system, including the plans to redraw parliamentary districts based on population, increasing the number of Lok Sabha seats (lower house seats) from 543 to over 800.
An earlier version of the bill was unanimously supported in 2023, but its implementation won’t happen until at least 2029.
Critics have accused Modi’s government of tying the bill to the broader and divisive process of “delimitation”, whereby boundaries of electoral constituencies are redrawn to ensure each elected representative roughly represents population numbers.
Several Opposition MPs questioned why women’s representation had been linked to the broader issue, including Rahul Gandhi, a senior figure in the opposition Indian National Congress party, who said: “The first truth is that this is not a women’s bill. This has nothing to do with the empowerment of women. This is an attempt to change the electoral map of India.”
Another critic was the Indian National Congress member Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who called it an “open attack” on democracy.
The day after the bill failed to pass, she described the result as “a huge victory for democracy.”
“The government’s conspiracy to alter the federal structure and weaken democracy was defeated and stopped,” she said. “This was a victory for the Constitution, a victory for the country, and a victory for the unity of the opposition. And it was clearly visible on the faces of the ruling party leaders.”
Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, accused the Modi government of trying to “bulldoze” delimitation through the backdoor.
“How shameful and sad… you are misusing women in the name of quota,” he said recently. “Women’s reservation should not be linked with delimitation.”
Opposition MP Shashi Tharoor said that linking women’s reservations to delimitation “effectively holds the aspirations of Indian women hostage to one of the most contentious political exercises in our history.”
“We risk creating a tyranny of the demographic majority where a handful of large, poor states could theoretically determine the fate of the entire country,” he said.
India has consistently ranked among the lowest countries in the Global Gender Gap Index, with less than 15 per cent of female politicians currently represented in parliament.
Some commentators however believe that the bill would have brought “progress and economic development” to the country, as well as highlight the various problems facing its female citizens, including gender-based violence, access to healthcare, and universal education.
Bridge India founder Pratik Dattani told the ABC that getting more women in parliament would ensure that “issues that male legislators have not prioritised thus far will get raised a lot more.”
“I think it’s slightly disingenuous of the government to say we need this in order for more women to be represented, without this women will not be represented,” he said.
“A lot of the conversation around this in parliament is grandstanding on both sides. If you can improve the lives of women, if you can increase the employment rate of women, you will boost GDP growth. If the world’s largest democracy can enfranchise women and empower women in this way I think that’s a beacon for the rest of the world.”
“Not just for western democracies but other parts of the world when men dominate the political landscape.”