33% reservation - another political tokenism

Congress Party of India is back to doing what it does the best. Pander to its votebank through divisive ways. Arjun Singh did it to the education sector few years back. They now want to bring a 33% reservation for females in the parliament. Their rationale: that would ensure the plight of women in the country. I find it quite undemocratic, almost bordering on autocracy, that a random female, on the basis of 'reservation' would be better placed to improve the plight of women in a given constituency than a democratically elected representative. If this bill is really passed, I can see how it would turn out to be. 60 years of reservation in the educational sector for SCs/STs hasnt improved their plight, and the reservation is continued to be (mis)used by the creamy layer of those castes. Ditto for women's bill. The educated 'city-socialites' who have always been away from the heat-n-dust of the real India would use this to the best of their advantage to get an added tag of MP to flaunt in their high society parties. While their partying is none of my business, but their commitment to changing people's life is. In addition, given that the current parliament has close to 70% of women MPs who are related to an influential politican, I wouldnt be surprised if all the male MPs whose constituency is 'reserved' for women put up their wives/daughters for election. Mockery of democracy.

The best thing, in my opinion, to really help women's plight across the country is to give more opportunities and incentives to educated women to join grass root politics across the party-lines. These grass-root workers are the ones who really come in touch with common men/women on a regular basis. When these people work their way up to power corridors, they form a much efficient set of administrator (eg Nitish Kumar). Once we have enough women grass-root workers, that would automatically lead to a higher representation in the parliament. THIS is where our so-called educated cabinet ministers are losing the plot. If you dont have enough women politicans at the grass-root, it is only natural that you wont see enough representation of women in the parliament. This is similar to what we see in the education sector. If you dont have enough women STUDYING engineering, how can you expect to have higher proportion of female engineers in companies. I had discussed this in detail here.

Congress had 60 years of misrule with a fiery Indira Gandhi at help for close to a decade. If THAT couldnt change the plight of the country, how would anything else? With a puppet female president, a female deputy speaker, Congress is an epitome of tokenism. I feel sorry for poor Indian electorate who cannot see through the games played by Congress to stay in power. Last 5 years were indeed a low point as far as Government's record on security is concerned. It still won. Congres has thrived on tokenism and gimmick politics. Infact, this tokenism is what defines Congress. It is in the interest of the party to keep the poor, poor. That's where it gets votes from. Pop in a gimmick NREGS (rural employment guarantee scheme), and you have your votes secured. Don't get me wrong - rural employement scheme sure help the poor, but where is the roadmap to remove poverty as has been promised in the manifesto? Heck, the number of people below the poverty line has actually gone up. Give them a candy, keep them hungry. THAT is tokenism. Just like Laloo's policy in Bihar when he was the CM, it is in Congress' interests to have people below poverty line. I find a similar attitude behind bringing up women's reservation bill.

Women have gone through and are going through a lot even today - in the 21st century - in rural India. These so-called leaders should focus their plight instead of politicizing the matter and thinking that a bunch of high society spice girls in the parliament are going to come up with an elixir for them.