Parliament unfair to the fairer sex

With only 38 women members left in the Lok Sabha, the world's largest democracy lags far behind other democracies in woman participation in politics.

The budget session opened on Thursday with one woman member less. Alka Nath relinquished her Chhindwara seat in favour of her husband Kamal Nath (who, incidentally, lost in the byelection), reflecting deeply entrenched social values which delegates at the recently held Inter-Parliamentary Union conference had admitted had to be fought.

While India had only eight per cent women in Lok Sabha, Sweden stood far ahead with 40.4 per cent followed by Norway (39.4), Finland (33.5) and Denmark (33). Even in China, women constituted 11 per cent of the national legislatures, a survey released at the IPU conference showed.

Lauding the large number of 599 women contestants in the fray, the survey partly attributed it to ''the heightened sense of self-confidence among women in their capacity to contribute on a par with men to nation-building.'' It, however, regretted that the number of women contestants has unfortunately not been commensurate with the large female population in India.

Despite the increasing women electorate (282,756,512) in 1996, at the apex of the representational hierarchy both at the Centre and the state levels, women still remained highly unrepresented, a glaring anachronism repeatedly pointed out at the IPU conference.

In the last 1996 general elections, there were only 599 women out of a total of 13, 952 candidates.

Even in many states where the women outnumber the men electors, their representation in terms of elected women members in the Lok Sabha is quite less. In Andhra Pradesh, out of 90 women who contested only three won; and in Bihar, out of 41 women, three were successful. In Uttar Pradesh, where 107 contested, nine won; and in West Bengal, four out of 21.

In Kerala, where the women voters are more than the men, out of the 20 members representing the state in the Lok Sabha, not even a single member is a woman. The situation on is no better in states like Mizoram and Manipur, where the size of the women electorate is bigger than that of men.

So far, the eighth Lok Sabha had a maximum of 44 women members representing 8.1 per cent of the membership of the house. The sixth Lok Sabha had the lowest number of women members with only 19 members, representing 3.4 per cent of the strength of the house.

The situation is no better in the case of state assemblies. In West Bengal, the number of women members is 1991 was 21 out of 294 and in Uttar Pradesh, it was only 14 out of a total of 422 in 1993. Tamil Nadu had 32 out of 234 (1991), Rajasthan 9 out of 199 (1993), Punjab 6 out of 117 (1992), and Orissa 8 out of 147 (1995).

The survey showed that even in the councils of ministers both at the national and state levels, women were under-represented. India has never had more than one female cabinet minister at one time. Nor have women been given cabinet charge of important ministries like defence, home, external affairs, or finance except when Indira Gandhi held some portfolios as prime minister.

There is only one women in the present council of ministers and she is in charge of the ministry of coal. Generally they have been given ministries like education, culture, social welfare, information, and social welfare. Presently, not even one out of the 17 departmentally-related standing committees is headed by a woman member.

The survey noted that unfortunately there was very little women representation in the party organisations which to a great extent contribute to the lack of their participation in the process of policy-making.

The need for gender equality at the level of party organisation has thus been stressed.

It regretted that in India political parties tended to give few tickets to women for the parliamentary elections. ''The reality is yet to match the various recommendations made,'' it noted.

UNI