Women’s Reservation Bill: Countering Political Opponents Through Tokenism to Hoodwink Women
The Modi regime which has been keeping a stoic and indifferent approach to the strengthening demand for women’s reservation in Lok Sabha and Assemblies, has suddenly made a sommersault by moving the Women’s Reservation Bill (128th Constitution Amendment Bill) in the Lok Sabha. This move aimed at catching women’s votes in the forthcoming elections, however, can be materialised only after 2029, and in the immediate future , especially in the 2024 election, it will remain only as a propaganda exercise with the Godi Media. The Bill that reserves a third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women, also has a clause that the reservation as per the Act will be in force only for a period of 15 years with effect from its implementation, which may also be extended further.
Further, the implementation of even this token move is subject to two conditions and hence will have to wait till 2029 for its coming into force. The first is the Delimitation exercise (redrawing of Constituencies) based on the population figures from the pending National Census, which forms the second condition. According to the Modi government, both the Census and the Delimitation exercise will be held after the General Election. Therefore, as already mentioned, for the the forthcoming election, this move is just only an vote-catching propaganda. Hence the Bill, even if implemented, will come into force only after a decade, other things remaining the same.
Instead of this token move, what requires is full-fledged representation of women in the whole legislative bodies in proportion to their share in total population. For instance, CPI (ML) Red Star in its Election Manifesto calling for a People’s Alternative has demanded, among other things, “50 percent reservation for women in all elected bodies up to Look Sabha, in the judiciary, police and in administration.” The Party stands for abolition of all forms of gender oppression, and total eradication of patriarchy in all its manifestations including property rights, work, pay and so on.
Obviously, according to the proponents of ‘Sanatana Dharma’, whose ideological basis is Manusmriti, women, like Dalits, being condemned to be subhuman, deserves neither equality nor freedom. Hence, the belated move for Women’s Reservation on the part of BJP Regime is mere tokenism intended to hoodwink women and to put its political opponents on the defensive.
In this context, we appeal to the oppressed women, progressive-democratic and antifascist forces to come forward exposing this propaganda exercise by the BJP regime and incorporate the need of ensuring equal political representation and equality of women in all walks of life as part of the immediate tasks of anti-fascist struggle.
P J James
General Secretary
CPI (ML) Red Star
21.09.2023
