Jonah Achumi
Reservation is now the hot topic of the day. There are endless debates going on at individual levels, various platforms and organizational levels. Some vehemently oppose it, some hardly supports it and some stay neutral. But before going on to support or oppose it, first of all we have to detach our emotions from the topic and look at the issue pragmatically.
Woman does need a quota to assert themselves. Even if there is a quota, it is only going to serve the rich and powerful who will rule through their wives, sisters or daughters. On the other hand, the passing of the Women Reservation Bill may cause bias in the democratic process. It may hurt the self-respect of women who have come up on their own ability, and may result in lesser respect for women in the society. It may also bring down the quality of leaders. Women, no doubt today have excelled themselves in all fields, and infact are surpassing men too in many different arenas but demanding equality with men by demanding 33 percent reservation seems somewhat hollow. Just for the sake of filling up some seats, demanding this right will be a disgrace to a women intellectually. If they want real equality with men, they should demand 50 percent and nothing less.
The problem today is how politics is going out of reach of the common people, both men and women. What is needed from the government, the bureaucracy, and most important of all, the Naga public is taking responsibility for one’s work, and to act like mature and accountable citizens. The cheating and fraudulent behavior that has somehow become inherent in our very ethos, possibly due to quite a lot of divisions, poverty and growing class conscious even among the lower middle or middle classes needs to be replaced by a sense of ownership for our land and its resources. Somewhere the question arises in our minds if our homes, schools or the church education fails to inculcate these qualities, for corruption knows no bounds of income or education level. Once we start to make ground in that direction, all systems will start functioning as they were intended to. The intention of the govt. to introduce the bill is pious, but the main part is that, the implementation of the bill will be as poor as the quota provided in the education system or job sectors. With the power of the election of the candidates still in the hands of few powerful people and it is sure that our citizens will be left with no choice but to select the “charismatic and dynamic” women under the shadow of influential and powerful man who ultimately are going to pull the strings. There is a reason why there are very few women in politics today in India – it has become a lifelong obsession for power, influence and fame – it stopped being “public service” decades ago. It takes a certain hunger for power and fame to even get into the political arena. Women Empowerment means to empower women in all aspects of their identity, capability and status. It is about empowering women to let them take their own decisions. They must be free to be the way they want to be. Empowered women will have better position and better status in the society. But Empowerment and Reservation is two completely different entities which we have to differentiate properly.
Granting reservations to a particular section of community in government jobs and other institutions is generally the highlight of any political party’s agenda these days. Now there have been discussions about providing reservations to women in government jobs and democratic institutions like legislative assemblies and Parliament also. We have a free society; women already have reservation at most places so why do they need it specifically in our local urban bodies?”Sometimes one feels that basically the reservation issue is nothing but a populist policy of a government, but still it is necessary to discuss the rationale behind such a policy. Can reservations for women be an effective measure and do the women really require such special reservation? These are the points which need to be addressed. The political opinion behind providing such reservations to women is to create a level playing field for all of its citizens. The argument is that social norms strongly favour men and therefore, reservation for women would create equal opportunity for men and women.
Of course, one myth that is easily exploded by the role played by such women leaders is that political leadership by women is dramatically different from that of men. Indeed, the truth is that most of our women political leaders are no better or worse than men. What all these suggests, therefore, is that the political empowerment of women not only still has a long way to go, but it also may not have all that much to do with the periodic carnivals of Indian electoral democracy. For any, woman who has the financial backing for election campaigns is already more empowered than an average Indian women.If ‘women empowerment’ is the underlying idea of reservation, then it is more logical to focus on providing basic education for all women, especially in the lower and middle strata of the society. The focus should be on giving a life of dignity for women of all strata and societies, through education, which can help design our lives. But again if the activists want to fight for a cause, ideally they should be forcing the government and others to ensure a secure environment for women not only in office but also on the roads. And maybe even at homes, why not? But honestly, why do we need quota to showcase equality when men and women are born equal. All that we need is basic education for all women.
Reservation for women in any democratic institutions would amount to a positive discrimination. But it might foster a sense of inferiority complex among the women that they have been, as if were, provided with crutches to walk on, to struggle in the demanding world. Also, reservation for women, as we have seen in the cases of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other backward Classes, would become a populist tool at the hands of powers that be. In the circumstances the intention of every political party is to talk in terms of reservation only, instead of hitting at the basic cause of such an inequality between men and women.
Instead of providing any solution to this deep rooted problem reservation for women may give rise to social, political as well as psychological tensions. There are many complex reasons behind the low representation of women in the socio-political and economic profile of the country which a reservation policy cannot hope to tackle.And by declaring that women are not capable enough to win seats in the real environment, you are not earning respect but just pity. Is this empowering woman in reality then?
“To be a feminist is to acknowledge that one’s life has been regressed. The demand for granting preferential treatment to women is an admission on her part of her inferiority and there has been no need for such a thing in India as the women have always been by the side of men in Council and in the fields of battle. We must have no mutual conflict in our homes or abroad. We must transcend differences. We must rise above nationalism, above religion, above sex.”
Sarojini Naidu said these words during the Fourth session of All India Women’s Conference, Bombay, 1930. Reservations and entitlements are not the best way for a democratic country to order its society. History has shown that once an entitlement or a reservation is put in place, it is impossible to revoke regardless of whether the purpose for which it was intended has been achieved or not. Reservations create no incentives for those entitled to them to break away from them and enter the mainstream. Besides it is a fallacy to believe that women legislators solve women’s problems better. And the idea of free and fair elections is for the electorate to choose who, in its combined opinion, the best person for the job is. Interfering with the course of free and fair elections seriously undermines democracy.
The WR Bill simply does not address the root causes of gender disparity in India – prejudicial attitudes, women being confined to a narrow set of social roles and economic backwardness. It may help break the glass ceiling as far as becoming an urban local body member, MP or MLA is concerned but it does not address the attitudes that sustain the glass ceiling. It is bound to be ineffective. We need a broad-based anti-discrimination bill. This will take care of all excuses those politicians’ harps for increasingly impractical reservations.One feels, however, that when one talks about reservation for women whether for or against one does so in the context of urban or at best semi-urban scenario only. Considering the condition of the rural women a policy like reservation, ad hoc as it is in our state, will not have much of an impact. Naturally, before taking, such a tough measure the government will have to acquire courage of conviction or a moral courage to create a condition where going against the age old Naga cultural traditions and will solve our society’s mess.
It may create a new kind of hatred between genders as males may feel deprived of certain privileges, which in turn may create more social issues. First, let’s not go about it in a democratic manner and not try to shove the existing reservation scheme down everyone’s throat. Second, women will be ghettoised and forced to fight elections only against other women. This will deny them the legitimacy of being mainstream politicians. Third, as male legislators will be forced to surrender their seats for a term to women, those who have worked to nurture their constituencies will likely insist that the seat be given to a woman from their family.
The women’s Reservation Bill has been a political raw nerve for nearly a decade now. It has always triggered heated debates in Parliament and .Another issue will be for the political parties, which will be forced to find women whether or not the women identify with the overall party agenda and the rest of the issues concerning all citizens, as opposed to just women’s issues. There are no provisions to prevent discrimination against men because of finding women who are inclined towards women’s issues alone, or, in other words, biased against men. Further, powerful male members of parties will be tempted to find female relatives to ‘reserve’ the seat for themselves. So, it is feared that reservation would only help women of the elitist groups to gain seats, therefore causing further discrimination and under-representation to the poor and backward classes.
The status of women in a society cannot be secured by her political or economic power alone as is generally supposed. It depends on culture also and most important our attitude? They are empowered as far as earnings are concerned but not with respect to spending the earnings. Nothing will change much as our foundation remains shifting sands. And yet we all want to climb to the top when the very edifice and the pillars of our homes and society are crumbling right away in front of our eyes. The entire societal structure is being corroded with bankruptcy of trust, jealousies, isms and anomalies of short term glories. In this type, women will remain as mere pawn even if allotted with the reservation. Naga society today firstly needs to straighten our homes and families. If we straighten our homes and families then our neighborhoods will be become right. Then so will follow our communities and the society as a whole. Only then our land will become right. But trying to fix and set right will only put us in a reverse mode which will backfire and jeopardize us more in this already gigantic disarray we are in today.
