ROLE OF INDIAN WOMEN IN POLITICS notes

ROLE OF WOMEN IN INDIAN POLITICS

Women in India have been oppressed and discriminated by men. They are seen as the weaker sex. Many see women are just supposed to stay in the house, keep it clean and take care of the children. Women have been given a second class citizenship in many parts of India. They are still fighting for their rights.

Many places they are fighting against the social clauses against them. Most of them look towards the law of the government to help them.

They are fighting for right to get married to who they want to, the right to get justice if raped.

Women like Sarojini Naidu, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Aruna Asaf Ali were some of the educated, elite women who played their part in the independence movement.

Women find it difficult to join India politic coz: -- They are not educated

n They are oppressed by their husbands and families.

n Their responsibilities of a mother and house wife.

n And any other u can think of.

A Case:

Kerala is a vastly educated State with female literacy rate of 86%. Yet the rate of women in the Kerla legislature rose from 1% to 6 % from 1967 to 1991. The reason is because these women are still under the social and traditional constraints and this prevents them from entering politics.

Education is not enough for women to join politics. Reservations are just not enough to get into politics.

They need:

n a supportive family and a family that has a political background.

n Someone in the family who is willing to take over the care of the family especially the children.

n A good amount of surplus money in the family.

But getting elected is not enough. Take the case of Uma Bharti of BJP who was driven to a suicide attempt caused by the slander campaign of her own colleagues.

However inspite of this there quite a large number (though not large enough) have broke through the ceilings and become big in politics. Women like Indira Gandhi, Mamta Banerijee, Sonia Gandhi - most of these women were single or windowed and had no man to hold them back. Also most of them had the elite background.

Women in Indian Poilitcs

Indira Gandhi made a great impact on the Indian Democracy; however she did little to promote the cause of women. However Indira was the first women Prime Minister of India and she rose to be one of the most powerful people in the world. Then there is Mamta Banerijee who came from West Bengal with the popular mass base support she rose as a powerful political leader. Then there is Sonia Gandhi who is right now one of the most powerful women in the world. She is leader of Congress. The first women President Pratibai Patil was elected only after 50 years after independence.

The majority of women in the Indian Parliament are from the elite class. While their public role challenges some stereotypes, their class position often allows them a far greater range of options than are available to poorer women. Caste has been an important feature of Indian society and political life. Most of the women MPs in the Tenth Parliament were members of the higher castes. Currently only 9% of women constitute in the Parliament. The Union Council of Minister consists only of 8 women where only 4 women are Cabinet members.

The reservation system for women in India was introduced first at the Panchayat level in Karnataka first in 1983 where 25% of the seats were reserved for women. Then in 1996 one-third (27%) of the seats in the Parliament and State legislatures were reserved for women. And now the UPA government is trying to make a Constitutional amendment to give reservation of 33% of seats for women.

Reasons why more women need to in politics:

n the greater the number of women in public office, articulating interests and seen to be wielding power, the more the gender hierarchy in public life could be weakened. In other words the social constraints (husband, family, village) can be weakened if there are more women.

n explore the strategies that women employ to access the public sphere in the context of a patriarchal socio-political system. These women have been successful in subverting the boundaries of gender and in operating in a very aggressive male-dominated sphere. Could other women learn from this example?

At the end of this I can only say that women role in politics is set to increase. It will increase at a very fast pace.