Share of women, youth in new state Assemblies
In the recently concluded assembly elections, only Kerala recorded a marginal increase in seats for women from 8 to 11.
- The women’s representation in West Bengal remained unchanged with 40 seats (41 in 2016) and Tamil Nadu recorded a decline from 21 seats to 12.
Reasons for Low representation of women in Parliament and Assemblies
- Political parties are reluctant towards women candidates: India’s dismal women’s representation record a consequence of political parties being reluctant to give tickets to women candidates.
- The hesitancy of political parties who miss no opportunity to harangue on women’s empowerment during campaigns is baffling because data contradicts the popular perception of women being “weak” candidates with low winning strike-rates.
- Opposition to Women’s Reservation Bill 2008: The law makers argue that if women’s reservation is implemented, women MPs and MLAs will become rubber stamps or de-jure leaders even as the men in their families, the de-facto leaders, will dictate terms.
- Lack of political awareness, exposure and expertise: It is argued that the women candidates are devoid of political awareness and lack of exposure and expertise in matters relating to administration and policy-making.
- Lack of knowledge: The experts believe that the women candidates are lacking knowledge about local governance acts, rules and regulations.
- Unfavourable working conditions: The low number of women representation at national and state level is mainly due to unfavourable working conditions for women.
- Patriarchal nature of Indian society: The indifferent attitude of officials coupled with the patriarchy of the predominantly male administrative machinery does create hurdles for women representatives.
- The cross-cutting barriers that women councillors face due to intersectionality of gender, seniority in the political party and position in the house.
Reasons for Low representation of youth in Parliament and Assemblies
- Inexperience of youth in political field: The perceived inexperience is one of the barriers in the election of young candidates, with older politicians suggesting that they wait for their turn to run for political office.
- Lack of recognition among political parties: The Young politicians may also lack the name recognition and the access to crucial networks needed to gain attention, be nominated by political parties and become viable candidates.
- Lack of financial resources among youth: There are many young people, because they are just beginning their professional careers or because unemployment among youth is high, simply lack the financial resources required to run a traditional political campaign.
- Increased political apathy among youth: The lack of civic education in school and maturation at a later age, young voters are less and less interested in conventional politics and participate less and less in the political process.
Why Parliament and Assemblies need more representation of women and youth?
- Increase in share of women’s voter turnout: In the 1962 Lok Sabha polls women constituted a measly 46.7% but by 2019, the share had shot up exponentially by nearly 20% to 67.18%.
- Low representation of women in law-making bodies: The women’s representation in law making bodies, both at the state level and in the Lok Sabha, can only be described as a “national shame”.
- Improvement in women’s representation across the globe: The Inter-Parliamentary Union proves that India is not only faring poorly in terms of women’s representation, but more importantly, its position has worsened in the last few years.
- Better decision making by women at panchayat and municipal level: The women representatives in local government bodies have come into their own delivering better local governance and even outperforming male representatives.
- Recruitment of young aspiring parliamentarians: The emerging academic research suggests that a latent core of young people could be encouraged to run for political office.
- Youth make up a substantial share of the population: A parliament that is significantly unrepresentative will be less able to reflect public opinion on the important issues of the day and may have its legitimacy called into question.
- Enhancing youth participation can contribute to better policymaking: The Young people are disproportionately affected by policies on education, employment, housing, gun control, and new technologies, among others.
- The young people will be more affected by decisions taken on longer-term issues like climate change, environmental sustainability or war.
Measures to be adopted to increase the participation of women and youth in Parliament
- Reservation of seats in Lok Sabha and state assemblies: The success achieved by reserving one-third of the seats in local government bodies like panchayats and municipalities is often cited as a model which can be emulated at the national level and state level.
- Capacity building programmes for women candidates: The NGOs and other organisations should come up at the forefront to organize capacity building programmes for women councillors.
- The workshops are designed to fit the needs and expectations of newly elected women councillors.
- Determination of target figure: The governments should pursue institutional reforms to correct the democracy deficit, such as lowering the eligibility age, designing new recruitment strategies, establishing youth quotas and empowering party youth wings.
- Youth quotas at national and state levels: The governments should consider introducing youth quotas to enhance the selection and promotion of young candidates and adopting lower age thresholds to help more politicians in their 20s and 30s get elected.
- Better competitive environment for newcomers: The limits should be placed on campaign spending to level the playing field for young newcomers facing older, better funded incumbents.
- Adoption of IPU Plan of Action for Gender Sensitivity: The Parliament should explore the feasibility of adopting recommendations set out in the IPU Plan of Action for Gender Sensitive Parliaments, including changes to working hours and the provision of day care and parental leave.
Road ahead
- It is high time the political class reads the writing on the wall and walks the talk regarding ensuring better women’s participation in Indian politics.
- The reservation is no panacea which will completely end the deeply-rooted gender bias in India’s socio-political set-up, but passing the Women’s Reservation Bill, 2008 will be the ideal way to make a start.
- The increased presence of young elected leaders may in turn encourage more citizens to recognize young people as willing and able to lead.
- The one option to nudge political parties into backing young candidates amidst such pushbacks is to consider legally-backed youth quotas.
- It could be in the form of either seats exclusively reserved for youth or a specified proportion of young candidates all registered parties contesting an election must field.
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