The Women’s Reservation Bill, in its present form, has serious, indeed fatal, flaws. If enacted, this measure will send our already tottering political system into a devastating tailspin. The one-third of the total parliamentary seats to be reserved for women is to be selected through a lottery system. This implies that, at random, at least 180 male legislators will be uprooted from their constituencies every election. In their place, 180 women will be assigned those constituencies before every election. Then, at the time of the next election, when the new list of 180 reserved constituencies is declared in the same manner, these 180 women will not be able to contest from the seats they are holding at that point of time because the same constituency cannot be reserved twice in succession under the bill’s rotation system.
Thus two-thirds of our legislators will be uprooted at every election. This takes away the incentive for women representatives to nurture and be accountable to their constituencies since after each election they will be expected to either withdraw from the contest or move to a different constituency since no constituency can be reserved in succession.
Thus this brainless scheme of reservation jeopardises the possibility of sensible planning to contest a political constituency for both men and women. Since very few women politicians have an independent electoral base, this uncertainty about where they will be fielded from will make them even more dependent on male bosses of their party to win elections. In such a situation, male politicians will find it easy to bring in their wives and daughters — the biwi beti brigade — as proxies to keep the seat “safe” for them until the next election when they would be likely to be able to reclaim their seats.
On the “politics” behind the Bill, the lead editorial in Mint is worth reading, according to which this “brainless scheme” is an idea of Madamji Soniaji Gandhiji – and it is she who is cracking the “party whip” at all her MPs, including those of her allies. Little tyrant.
In other words, this Bill should be defeated in the Lok Sabha. Please phone your MP and ask him to vote against it. This Bill is aimed at subverting our representative system; indeed, subverting the very Constitution itself.
But this is just a ruse: a diversionary tactic, at which the Indian politician excels. The real fuck-up facing the Total Chacha State emerges from the second editorial in Mint, which is titled “Bond Market Turbulence.” Bond prices are falling fast, and the huge borrowing plans of the Total Chacha State are in jeopardy.
They should fix their finances.
They should tackle the Maoists.
Instead, they are trying to get women into their legislatures.
Kill this Bill.
The juggernaut of women’s reservation bill is running amuck, and no power on earth can stop it from becoming a reality.
ReplyDeleteIt is like Obama’s healthcare bill, which seems unstoppable in US.
Politicians in democracies around the world have lost their mind completely. Even the media has gone crazy. Instead of reporting in an unbiased manner, a major chunk of media in democratic countries has turned into a drummer boy for all kinds of idiotic ideas.
Democratic society is doomed because the big media, the big politicians, the big industrialists, the big celebrities and the big terrorists have a common agenda of misleading the common man and turning him into a slave of the state, the gang or the tribe.
Support for Woman’s Reservation Bill has taken the same kind of strident overtones that the campaign against so-called Global Warming had taken. These so called activists are bullies like George W Bush, who is famous for saying, “Either you are with us or you are against us.”
The bozo believers in Global Warming say: Either you are a believer of Global Warming or you are an evil polluter.
The bozos who support Women’s Reservation bill say: Either you support the bill or you are anti-women.
This kind of “my way or highway” attitude is totally undemocratic and it should have no place in civilized society. Our society is being led by savages who have respect for logic or reason, they are only after brute power.
Anyone who dares to disagree with these bozos gets laughed at, insulted and in some cases he faces the danger of being beaten to pulp…
Madhu's argument assumes the women candidates can't contest without reservation, in the next term. Apparently, the bill assumes, if a women has managed to win once, the goal of empowerment is thus achieved. Just being devil's advocate.
ReplyDeleteRoot of the problem again is collectivism. Clientelism of the state. It's simply another divide and rule. Next decades will see Mens Reservation bill. If Congress manages to encash the credit for this bill; future opponent will advocate for Man. That's how it goes.
God knows when our politics is going to see 'women' as individuals. I'd say kill the gender politics!
I agree. I would much rather kill this bill because it just defies reason. You are either equal or not. The bill is basically stating that all are equal, however, it is much better to give some superiority to women and make men inferior till the women come up to the same level as men today. It again just defies logic. All quotas at the end of the day should be abolished because with quota there is no equality.
ReplyDeleteWhy are these powerful politicians proclaiming that the Women’s reservation bill is about Women’s rights!
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing called women’s rights. There is nothing called men’s rights, human rights, animal rights, gay rights, environmental rights, etc… All these rights are complete nonsense. They do not exist in nature.
The leftist intellectuals have invented all these plethora of fictitious rights in order to dilute the concept of “individual rights”.
Leftists hate the concept of the individual. They prefer to have the collective. That is why they are conspiring to destroy the concept of the individual by campaigning for various sub-groups.
Instead of having a society where proud and happy individuals lead independent lives, the leftist intellectuals want to create a world where everyone is part of a pathetic collective which is ruled by a dictator.
It is a time tested “unite and destroy” strategy that the leftist intellectuals are employing. They are bundling human beings into a huge messy collective by creating this idea of special rights.
Women are individuals, just as men are, and hence they already have their individual rights. Every human being is born with a set of inalienable rights. A government’s rightful job is safeguarding those individual rights. The moment you create special set of rights for women; you destroy the idea of individual rights.
Indian Society has started resembling George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where “All creatures are equal, but the pigs are more equal than the others.”
According to the Henry Maine's 'Status to contract' thesis, in the ancient world individuals were tightly bound by status to traditional groups, while in the modern one, in which individuals are viewed as autonomous agents, they are free to make contracts and form associations with whomever they choose.
ReplyDeleteIt seems Indian society is going backwards. Identity based politics and reservations in every sphere of life indicates that precisely.