Kejriwal’s cabinet remains an all-male affair

Bharatiya Janata Party, which had promised 33 per cent reservation for women in legislatures in its manifesto, has gone back on it. Other political parties too seem lukewarm at best. The case for women’s reservation, however, would seem to have got a boost from anti-CAA protests led mostly by women across the country. Even Arvind Kejriwal may find it difficult to keep the women out much longer.

Delhi, of course, has had a woman as chief minister in Sheila Dikshit and that too for three consecutive terms. But it was only in 1998 that Delhi Assembly had as many as nine women members, a number which has not been exceeded since then.

This time too, although 24 women were in the fray, nine of them from AAP, only eight of them could win. That none of them, not even Atishi Marlena, has found a place in the all-men AAP ministry has come as a surprise because women seem to have voted overwhelmingly in favour of Aam Aadmi Party.

Besides setting aside a quarter of the budget for education and allocating a substantial budget for health, free rides for women in buses, CCTV cameras and women marshals deployed in buses were some of the steps that won AAP their support.

Also, Atishi Merlena is given a large part of the credit for the impressive face lift given to government schools in the national capital. AAP sources indicate that she and the other women will be given important roles. But that is hardly any consolation because the men in the cabinet could also have been given the roles contemplated for the women.

What has also strengthened the case for greater representation of women is the organisational skill and grit that hitherto unknown women have exhibited in protests across the country. Their impressive oratorial, management, communication and coordination skills have strengthened the case for inducting more women in public affairs and politics.

But politics in India remains a male bastion. There were only 12.2 per cent women in the 16th Lok Sabha and the 17th Lok Sabha looks only marginally better with 14 per cent women MPs.

In terms of women MPs, India is far behind even its South Asian neighbours. Pakistan has 20.6 per cent representation of women in its parliament while Bangladesh has 20.3 per cent. Even war-ravaged Afghanistan has 27 per cent women in its legislature.

Cuba, Rwanda and Bolivia have more women legislators than men. Latin America and Caribbean islands in general have very good women representation in legislatures. Nordic countries on the whole have 43 per cent women’s representation.

In 2011 the UN General Assembly resolution noted, “Women in every part of the world continue to be largely marginalized from the political sphere, often as a result of discriminatory laws, practices, attitudes, gender stereotypes, low levels of education, lack of access to healthcare and the disproportionate effect of poverty on women.”

Grass root workers of almost all the political parties in India are predominantly men. They show chauvinistic reluctance to work for a woman candidate. This is a key reason cited by political parties for nominating fewer women in India. More women workers and activists at the grass root levels is expected to lead to a healthier representation.

Surprisingly, women have been very successful in politics, both in India and abroad. Not just Indira Gandhi, who led the country to war with Pakistan in 1971 and incorporated Sikkim into the Indian Union, but Finland's Sanna

Martin is the youngest serving PM of the world and almost her entire cabinet is of women. New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has also drawn global attention for her decisive action against lax gun culture and the way she led the country after a terror attack in a mosque, not to mention the record of Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel.

The idea of one-third reservation for women in our legislatures was first mooted by the United Front government of H D Deve Gowda in 1996.

However, the Bill lapsed without being passed in the legislature. However, in 2010 the UPA government adopted it in the Rajya Sabha to keep it alive as the bills introduced and passed by the Upper House do not lapse.