Women's Reservation Bill introduced in the Indian Parliament

Today a new session started in the Indian Parliament and a bill that provides for reservations for women in various legislatures was introduced. In the in Lok Sabha (the lower house of Parliament) and all state legislative assemblies, one-third of the total number of seats to be filled by direct elections shall be reserved for women. Further, one-third of the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes shall also be reserved for women.

Interestingly, today’s session was the first sesion in the new Parliament building which has cost the Indian tax payer a pretty penny.

The Women's Reservation Bill seeks to amend the Indian constitution by introducing the following new provisions in the Constitution. These are:

• New clause in 239AA: This provides for reservations for women in the Delhi Legislative Assembly.
• New Article – 330A: This provides for reservations for women in the Lok Sabha Assembly.
• New Article – 332A: This provides for reservations for women in every state legislative assembly.

Tracing the history of The Women's Reservation Bill 

Reservation for women in legislatures is not a new idea. In May 1989, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi introduced a Constitution Amendment Bill to provide one-third reservation for women in rural and urban local bodies. The Bill was passed in Lok Sabha but failed to pass muster in the Rajya Sabha. In 1992 and 1993, then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao reintroduced Constitution Amendment Bills 72 and 73, which reserved one third (33%) of all seats and chairperson posts for women in rural and urban local bodies. The Bills were passed by both the houses and became law. Now there are nearly 15 lakh elected women representatives in panchayats and nagarpalikas across the country. In September 12, 1996, then Deve Gowda-led United Front government for the first time introduced the 81st Constitution Amendment Bill in Lok Sabha for reservation of women in the Parliament. After the Bill failed to get approval in Lok Sabha, it was referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee chaired by Geeta Mukherjee. The Mukherjee commttee presented its report in December 1996. However, the Bill lapsed with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha. In 1998, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government pushed the Women’s Reservatio Bill in the Lok Sabha. However, this time too, the Bill failed to get support, and lapsed again. It was subsequently reintroduced in 1999, 2002 and 2003 under the Vajpayee government, but with no success.

On 6 May 2008, the Congress government tabled the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha. Five of the seven recommendations made by the 1996 Geeta Mukherjee Committee were included in this version of the Bill. The legislation was sent to the standing committee on May 9, 2008. The standing committee presented its report on December 17, 2009. It got the stamp of approval from the Union Cabinet in February 2010. The Bill was eventually passed in the Rajya Sabha with 186-1 votes on March 9, 2010. However, the Bill was never taken up for consideration in the Lok Sabha and eventually lapsed in 2014 with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha.

Now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said his government is committed to ensuring that the 'Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam' aimed at expanding women's participation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies becomes a law, as he urged MPs of both Houses of Parliament to pass the bill unanimously.

When will the Bill be effective? 

Assuming the Bill  is passed quickly by both Houses of Parliament, in the ongoing Special Session, when will it come into force? The Bill makes the implementation of women’s reservation contingent upon the planned delimitation process, which itself is contingent on the completion of the 2021 census exercise.

According to the Election Commission (EC) website, delimitation “literally means the act or process of fixing limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or a province having a legislative body”. It is done to reflect the demographic changes in a state, Union Territory or at the national-level — the underlying logic being that a set number of voters have one representative in the Lok Sabha as well as in the state assemblies across the country.  Hence, this exercise is carried out after every census. Article 82 of the Indian Constitution talks about readjustment of Lok Sabha and state assembly seats after each census. For this, the Parliament has to frame a law that would authorise a Delimitation Commission to take up the exercise of redrawing the territorial constituencies. The decennial census exercise that was to be conducted in 2021 was postponed indefinitely due to the Covid pandemic. In June, the Registrar General of India issued an order, saying the 2021 census was extended and would be frozen with effect from 1 January, 2024. The 2021 census is expected to be the first digital census, giving the citizens an opportunity to self-enumerate.

After the 2021 census is complete, the delimitation exercise can take place. As per the Centre’s affidavit in the Supreme Court, the strength of the Lok Sabha is likely to go up from 543 to 888 and that of Rajya Sabha may climb to 384 from the existing 245. The government had filed this affidavit while defending the construction of a new Parliament building, which was challenged before the top court.

Therefore, women’s reservation may not effectively beoperationalised in the Lok Sabha before the general elections of 2029.

A Fifteen Year Window

The Women's Reservation Bill stipulates that reservation for women in legislatures would be for a period of 15 years. I'm sure that 15 years is a reasonable time period for women to establish a foothold in Parliament and thereafter fight it out on an equal footing!