An Imbalance in Representation

It is unfortunate that consensus continues to elude the country when it comes to the issue of implementing the women reservation bill. Since the late nineties, the bill to ensure 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament as well as in state assemblies has been hanging in the balance on one pretext or another. During the recent special session of Parliament, the bill failed to get the requisite two-thirds majority necessary for constitutional amendments, as the ruling alliance and the opposition parties continued to differ over the base year of delimitation. While the opposition parties claimed that delimitation should be done after the completion of the ongoing census, the government insisted on going ahead with the 2011 census. The difference over the base year has almost created a vertical divide in the Lok Sabha, as some parties have clearly switched sides, as evident from the poll outcome, and in the process has raised some very important questions. If we are really interested in providing proper representation to women in policy-making, finding suitable answers to these questions is a must.

First and foremost, it is high time for our policymakers to ensure proper representation of all the states in the Lok Sabha, considering the vast diversities and the problems various states are facing. In the present scenario, the voices of small states, more often than not, remain unheard in the temple of democracy. For instance, mainland states with a higher number of representatives always remain in an advantageous position to raise issues related to their states than representatives of smaller states having merely a handful of members. As a result, issues related to the Northeast get fewer mentions in the lower house in comparison to states like Uttar Pradesh or Maharashtra. Judging the situation, we will have to rethink whether to continue with the policy of allocating seats to various states on the basis of population alone. This is important to fulfil regional hopes and aspirations properly, as we have already witnessed that such neglect has snowballed into bigger crises, creating unrest in the country. Here, one should not forget that the historic Assam Agitation was a direct fallout of our failure to address the genuine grievances of the people.

Furthermore, delimitation based on population may trigger fresh trouble, as the southern states have already expressed fears of being punished for abiding by government policy on population control. For instance, if the number of seats in the Lok Sabha increases beyond 800 on the basis of the 2011 census, as proposed by the government, the demographically high-performing southern states will gain 39 seats, while the poorer demographically performing states in the Hindi belt will gain 133 seats. Clearly, such an eventuality will increase regional imbalances further and may lead the country towards a deeper crisis. Thus, without sticking to their respective positions, both the government and the opposition should start discussing the issue to find an amicable solution, as the primary task of any democracy is to put a mechanism in place so that every voice is heard.