I am inundated with celebratory voices about Women's Reservation Bill which got passed today a bill to reserve a third of all seats in the national parliament and state legislatures for women. Some women have tears and hurray and all that jazz. I respect the sentiment of those women but its not something historic and logic driven that will change the status quo merely by women being present there. I see it as more of a or merely a symbolic victory and most likely a political gesture. Well understood and then I question that if reservation is an answer to all that is happening and if it this any solution?
Don't we need excellence in leadership at that level where being male, female, bisexual, homosexual and what have you is of less importance than the work that is required to improve things. As I say this I realize, what about the whole bi's and homo's population representation. But that's for another day. Today let's talk only about women. Reservations and quotas are really for needy people and which so often happens that in India it rarely reaches them. Same issue, I saw in well meaning reservation for SC/ST. But this reservation was mostly enjoyed by privileged middle class, aware folks who had all the resources and money and yet got reservation benefits whereas they should have done things on their merit. Suppressed remained ignoramus and exploited and continue to do so.
If women's representation had to change anything then why hasn't it changed it already? We have had woman prime minister and have a woman president. Paradigm shift and attitude change does not happen merely by placing symbols. Rather by inculcating excellence and implementing result driven schemes and awareness and education and that's neither a man nor a woman's job but a collective conscious team effort. This whole deal sounds more like two female compartments reserved in a Bombay local train. Sorry about the frivolity.
Have a heavy duty scheme which attempts to change the mindset of people that women should not be a victim of social expectations, arbit mores, rules, regulations which all leads to self abuse or external abuse in one way or the other. Lift those restrictions and set them free. Enable them to make their independent choices, wrong or right and then let them learn from them and become a more able person. Have a bottom up approach reach the most neglected and abused section of women. Enable them, give them tools. They will fight for themselves and teach you how to do things better in next step. This top down symbolic gesture for now is for amusement. Only.
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A beaming SoniaG, chair person of the UPA announced that the government will now introduce a bill to ensure 20% reservation for children in the parliaments of states and centre to coincide on November 14, the children's day. "It is a shame that even after 60 years of independence, 60% of the children suffer from malnutrition", she said. A committee under the chairmanship of Dr MMSingG is constituted to complete the formalities by then. The secretary general of AICC, Dr RahulG added, "It is only the UPA, which had the vision to safeguard the interests of children. This is a vital first step to empower them as children are the future of this country". A spokesperson for AICC applauded RahulG by saying that he has once again proved his visionary credentials to be the next prime minister of India. It is learnt that the union home ministry is working on a bill to provide 10% reservation for insurgents as a strategy to bring them into the mainstream democratic process. Senior BJP leader ArunG demanded that a quota should now be established for cows too in the parliament as no one is interested in their plight. A political commentator commented on conditions of anonymity that there won't be any requests for reservation for donkeys and pigs as they are already over represented at present.
I concur with the bottom-up approach to self-empowerment. The issue with reservations, as you have pointed out, is that it occurs at a level where it hardly achieves its intended objectives.
One commentator on the bill talked about how women might be used as proxies by their male counterparts. We have seen that happen before with Laloo installing his wife as the chief minister. That, if it occurs, will defeat the very objective of the bill.
Anon: Your comment is profound.
Niranjan: You are right about that example you gave. And misuse is going to be hard to avoid. The trouble is I do not see fierce determination to really solve the issue at hand. If reservation had to solve anything, we would have had classless/caste-less India by now. We are just trying to 'appear busy' solving issues by superficial attempts.
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