Women reservation in India
Indian parliament is trying to bring women reservation in elections. Which means that each political party will have atleast 1/3rd women candidates in elections. I personally find this decision useful. Useful because we need women in political system. Some might argue that its not gonna help. But I think it will. Having more women in political system means more concerns about women empowerment in society. The biggest opposition for this bill probably came from SP, the party which has quite some influence from Muslims. Now a women leader from Muslim side is quite uncommon. This bill will encourage Muslim women to come up and have a voice. Of course, one women leader in a city will empower other women in that city.
Now I know this is sexist. I am not really against sexism or racism, but this is too much. But you can not win this war with ideals. (I don’t fully support Gandhi philosophy). What is important is that it remains at 1/3rd, and doesnt increase. Come on, women is India are not that incompetitive.
Arguing that this is not going to help is a good exercise in astrology.
Jokes aside, I feel for you when you connect SP, Muslim votebank-appeasement and the general practice of backward Muslim populace to not give women her appropriate rights because of their dogmatic faith.
I don’t get what you wanted to say by mentioning that you don’t fully support Gandhi philosophy – how does that figure here?
And, yes, 1/3rd is just fine. What the female gender (in India) needs more is a good education and the ability to stand for themselves. Rest shall follow.
“feel for you” : does that mean that you understand what I am trying to say or something else? Sorry, I am not good with languages
Well, I think I need not use Gandhi’s example here, but what I wanted to say was that Gandhi’s non-violence movement was ideal, but seemed unrealistic, though it did worked. Here, ideally we shouldn’t have any reservations, but we do need them IMO.
I agree, what females need more is education and the ability to stand for themselves, and I think this reservation will give them the platform for that.
@rohitj: In fact, the phrase is “I feel you”. Which means he understands what you’re saying and agrees. You’d be more put off by that phrase I guess
Also fully agree with Naresh: tackle it at a lower level. This is NOT a solution, not long term, not short term. In Pronoy’s words, all this does is make some people “eligible to be oppressed”. Empower them the right way (teach independence, freedom of thought, make aware fundamental rights, do much more in addition to all of these right at the level of education in schools.. have training programs for teachers to treat male and female students alike, test teachers for such biases before hiring them in schools..this is just off the top of my head, there’s SO MUCH you can do at the right level. This is an easy way out which makes them feel good, but really does nothing for anybody.
I would’ve used “I feel you”… if not for this
@Vishnu : I see what you are saying, and ideally thats what should happen. But this isn’t easy, considering corruption and having to arrange way too many people who believe (and are ready to do something about it) in similar ideas. If you ensure that women are in government, these women will not sit quite about the women rights issue. We already have such bills for “gram panchayat” and it has been quite successful, why not extend to every where. We have been trying forever to get education to everyone, that never happened either. Giving power might be helpful. Oh, and I agree that the time constraint and the 33% limit should be maintained, otherwise we might be in trouble. the 33% limit atleast.