The Women’s Reservation Bill has smoothly sailed through the Lower and Upper Houses of Parliament, scripting history after decades of roadblocks. All it needs now is the assent of the President to make 33 per cent reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies official.

Since 1996, multiple governments have introduced versions of the Women’s Reservation Bill but failed to enact it due to a lack of political consensus.

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government tabled a women’s reservation Bill in Rajya Sabha in 2008 and passed it two years later with 186-1 votes. Close to making women’s quota a reality, the Bill was sent to the Lok Sabha as per parliamentary procedure. However, it never saw the light of day due to opposition from various political leaders.

Also Read: Lok Sabha clears Women’s Reservation Bill, 2023

Ever since, the hopes and dreams of the women of this country were left dangling, till the current government, owing to its brute majority in Parliament, turned it into a reality.

At least on paper.

For, the timing of the Bill raises certain questions. The BJP has been in power for over nine years but chose to bring the Bill by convening a special session just ahead of crucial Assembly elections in five states and the Lok Sabha elections due next year. What took the government so long to bring a Bill that it promised in its manifesto as early as in 2014?

And now, when it has finally set the ball rolling, why is there a blurry timeline for its implementation?

Of course, the ruling party thinks that enacting it is a masterstroke ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections that could yield rich dividends among its women constituents. At the same time, it also realises that immediate implementation may not be feasible with less than a year left for general elections.

Also Read: Explained: What is the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam for women’s reservation introduced in Parliament today?

Women’s representation in Parliament and state legislatures

The issue of gender parity or female representation in the legislature is not new. Women, who constitute almost one-half of the country’s population, have historically been politically marginalised. It has been a point of discussion in our country right since the freedom movement.

And yet, regrettably, the number of women representatives in legislatures has remained abysmal even after decades of independence. Even today, women representatives account for a mere 14.94 per cent in the Lok Sabha and 14.05 per cent in the Rajya Sabha. This is much lower than the global average of female representation in national parliaments which as of May 2022 stood at 26.2 per cent.

The representation in India is lower than most of the countries even in the Asia-Pacific region itself, where the figure stood at 20 per cent in 2020, according to UN Women data.

Also Read: Parliament creates history as Rajya Sabha clears Women’s Reservation Bill, 2023

A 2015 Report on the Status of Women in India by the Ministry of Women and Child Development noted that women’s representation in Parliament and state assemblies was dismal, especially in senior decision-making positions.

India has had just one woman Prime Minister and two female Presidents since independence in 1947. So far, only 15 women have served as chief ministers.

That record has pushed India, often referred to as the world’s largest democracy, towards the bottom of the global list on gender parity in legislatures. The country ranks 141 out of 185 in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap Report.

Data shows that India is faring far worse than the other nations and even though it might feel like a litany of grouses, the implementation of women’s reservation is not only a requisite but is also the need of the hour.

Also Read: Women’s Reservation Bill incomplete without OBC quota, says Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha

Why is legislative representation fundamental?

Legislative representation is fundamental to political empowerment, enabling participation in the law-making process. Legislatures play a vital role in raising debates and discussions on various aspects of governance and in exacting accountability from the government.

Women’s representation in the national parliament is a key indicator of the extent of gender equality in parliamentary politics. In today’s world, adequate representation is considered a basic tenet of democracy.

India is the largest and one of the most resilient parliamentary democracies in the world with a female population of approximately 662.9 million.

However, the Bill which was passed in the Parliament on Thursday (September 21) leaves a grey area as to when will women get the legislative representation promised through it.

Also Read: Women’s reservation bill gets clearance in crucial Modi Cabinet meeting: Reports

Problematic timeline for implementation

At the outset, the 2023 Bill looks like an abridged version of the 2008 Bill introduced by the UPA government.

It mandates 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha, the state Legislative Assemblies, and the Delhi Assembly. It also reserves one-third of seats for women within the existing SC and ST reservations. Seats will be reserved on a rotational basis and reservations will cease after 15 years.

The 2023 Bill, however, leaves a lacuna for criticism on certain grounds. First and foremost is the sketchy timeline for the implementation of the Bill.

The Bill reads that it shall come into effect “after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken for this purpose after the relevant figures for the first Census taken after the commencement of the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Amendment) Act, 2023 has been published.”

It doesn’t specify the cycle of elections from which women will get their due share.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha during the discussion on the Women’s Reservation Bill, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi demanded that the quota be implemented immediately.

Also Read: Congress ‘stands to support’ women’s quota Bill but with riders

“I want to ask a question. For the last 13 years, Indian women have been waiting for their political responsibilities, and now they are being asked to wait for a few more years — two years, four years, six years, eight years,” the former Congress chief said.

TMC leader Mahua Moitra also noted that the implementation date remained unclear as the “date of the next census is indeterminate, and the date of the delimitation exercise is doubly indeterminate”. With the reservation contingent on a census and subsequently a delimitation exercise, the TMC leader said that reservation may not be possible even in 2029.

No reservation in Rajya Sabha

The second point of concern is that the Bill does not have a provision for women’s quota in the Rajya Sabha, where female representation is even lower than the Lok Sabha currently. Representation is an ideal that must be reflected in both the Lower and Upper Houses.

The Bill might have its flaws, but we must not forget how significant this glorious day when the Women’s Reservation Bill named ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’ was passed, is.

The Bill has now passed the final stages of becoming a law. Will this really become a “defining moment in India’s history” as Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims it to be, only time will tell. Nonetheless, the women of this country have waited for 27 long years to see this Bill being enacted and they should not be made to wait much longer.