The many ways to increase women’s presence in politics
It may not be such a bad idea to begin the work of opening up space for women by training men to think of women as legitimate claimants to a life in politics
Just as MK Stalin, the chief minister (CM) of Tamil Nadu, organised a conclave of political leaders to discuss the potential impact of delimitation on south Indian states, Karnataka’s deputy CM DK Shivakumar has donned another hat of worry. Speaking to the three women legislators in the state assembly, he asked them to prepare and train a cohort of women to take their place in the legislatures and Parliament, should reservations for women become a reality.
This could just be the shrewd calculations of a man who has indeed rebuilt the Congress party in Karnataka and steered it to victory when it was out of power. But there is a delicious irony to his concern. With just 1% of women in the current legislature, Karnataka is at the rank bottom of the list of Indian states, led, ironically, by Bihar, Rajasthan and West Bengal, that have emplaced more women in politics (between 12% and 14%).
But the deeper irony is his logic (as indeed the logic of most political parties, including the BJP, which loudly claimed credit for passing that post-dated cheque on women’s reservations). By this logic, major political parties will wait until the fielding of woman candidates is mandated for all parties. In short, it treats women’s reservations as a liability that must be inflicted on all parties before any softening of the masculine hold on all levels of politics can begin.
We must, of course, be cautious about reading the presence of women in legislatures as an indication of women’s political empowerment. As Gail Omvedt’s comparison of South Asian democracies had shown, there can be an inverse relationship between the higher representation of women in Parliament and legislatures (say in Pakistan) and their social status. Sri Lanka may have the most equal gender relations in the region, but does poorly on the representation front.
Still, political presence is an important starting point. Karnataka was the pioneer of reservations in local self-government, way back in the 1983, before it was made into national law. Were any lessons learned from this early start? Surely its experience with women in local bodies should have boosted confidence in women’s political capacity. After all, as many studies had shown, women in local bodies soon exceeded the mandated 33%. Why does a measure that was so full of hope when mandated for local bodies now evoke fear and hesitation among parties?
In fact, studies of how women performed in local bodies, urban and rural, in Karnataka, since the 1990s, have thrown up some interesting observations. First, unlike the untested stereotype which asserts that women are everywhere, always proxies for men, the studies showed that not all inheritors are proxies. There were women who might have been enabled by a family connection, but definitely did not shy away from their political responsibilities. If anything, the policy of rotating reservations might have dimmed their chances of a second term.
Second, these studies showed that while, no doubt, most proxies were women, there was no guarantee that women as “place-holders” paid off in the next election. But perhaps the most important insight generated by these studies was that, unlike what is popularly believed, the family, and family connections, are a vital resource for all fledgling politicians, men and women alike. The family is the primary training ground for men and women who aspire to a life in politics.
Perhaps it is only for women that their fortunes in politics depended on their stage in the life cycle. Many successful women in urban local bodies, for instance, spoke of their relative freedom to pursue their careers if they could rely on a daughter-in-law to take care of domestic duties.
Shivakumar would do well to pay attention to the small cottage industry of studies of women in local bodies, before he places the burden of “training” women for a future in politics on the three women legislators. Do caste associations, or the proliferating associations for community religious practice, which often pave the way for a life in politics, remain male bastions? The answer is yes. But there are realms of public engagement in which women have been a considerable force, especially in urban areas: The Residents’ Welfare Associations. Many women have creatively extended their “housekeeping” roles to neighbourhoods, though they may stop short of standing for elections.
Which of these forms of engagement can be usefully channelled into a concerted effort to ensure women their place in public political life? If the Karnataka Congress is indeed serious about transforming itself to become more inclusive of women, perhaps it could do well by first shining the torch on male party cadres and legislative members, who routinely and publicly denigrate their female colleagues and opponents. It may not be such a bad idea to begin the work of opening up space for women by also training men to think of women as legitimate claimants to a life in politics.
Janaki Nair is a Bengaluru-based historian. The views expressed are personal