A seat of her own

A seat of her own

Posted: Thu Apr 16 2009, 23:47 hrs
Nirmala Ravishankar & Jason Lakin



Around the world, women are much less likely to participate in politics than men. This gap has become a major political issue in many countries in the last two decades, India among them. In 1992, the 73rd Amendment established reservations for women in panchayat elections around the country. Soon thereafter, the idea of female reservation at the national level was mooted. Since 1996, there have been several concrete attempts to introduce a one-third seat quota for women in national and state elections. Were India to introduce gender quotas, it would follow dozens of other countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Rwanda and Mexico.



While quota laws are one way to increase women’s participation, it is worth analysing to what extent women are increasing their participation in the absence of such legislation. The data suggest that Indian women have very slowly gained a foothold in national and state politics between 1980 and 2004 (the last election for which we have data), but that they remain woefully under-represented among voters, candidates and parliamentarians.