Political participation of women in India is still under the clutch of complications and needs fair attention by upholding the identification of the real cause and just not making the issue an opportunity to spread the unjust approach under the doctrines of feminism.
In India, women just scream, for possessing the susceptible way to get into power or to occupy space in politics, like through several affirmative actions guaranteed under the Constitution and so they never prefer to choose a tough path of accomplishing hardships and struggle. In a few sections of our society women even, do not think about joining politics, but just to showcase a sedentary side of a patriarchal system & to drive the feminist agenda women’s organization demands the enactment of so-called ‘Women Reservation’ legislation in union parliament.
Presently, in the prevailing circumstances, the subject for discussion is whether ‘Indian women can be part of politics by bringing more favourable legislation or whether we need to put proper attention on the unscathed issues that are affecting the women’s representation in politics.
The approach of the women-based organisation constantly accuses the patriarchal mindset of men as responsible for the low representation of women in Indian politics, but on the contrary, it has been seen that in the 21st century there is a visible transition, from the dominance of the men to the adoption of gender neutrality approach by the society in all the fields including politics.
The recent increase in women’s employment in several jobs sectors, which were earlier dominated by men, demonstrates that patriarchy is not the only reason responsible for the less enrollment of women in politics other factors contribute too and so, feminists need to shift their approach from patriarchy to those issues which are untouched even after several decades of independence.
All untouched issues are crucial and required immediate attention, then only our society will be able to improve the political participation of women.
Women in India are definitely, getting involved in the practical working of Indian politics but at a very depressed pace, in the lower house, women constitute 12.6% of total members and in the upper house, they constitute 11.5% of total members-only, criticizing the man’s misogynist behaviour is not just responsible for their less involvement, rather then we need to concentrate on the other important aspects accountable for slighter participation of women in politics like:
(1) Lack of Political Skills–
Most women are unable to participate in politics because they don’t possess adequate knowledge of the same. States like Uttar Pradesh present alarming figures that around 85000 women are unable to vote in each constituency as they aren’t registered as voters. Most of the women in the country don’t know how politics work, and how the institutions govern the people and themselves.
(2) Lack of Political knowledge–
Politics is just not a way to just discharge welfare for people but it comes with more responsibility to look over global affairs in terms of our country and to make the legislature which needs a level of understanding of distinct issues.
(3) Absence of Women Based political parties–
Women just cry to get an equal proportion of representation in the political parties but no women in India dared to establish an independent political party that will look exclusively look over the interest of women. Inspiration can be taken from Finland’s political parties we’re 5 different political parties headed by women politicians who formed the coalition government in Finland which gave the world the youngest female Prime Minister.
(4) Indian socio-religious factors —
Even our religious practices are reflective of our male-dominated political system. Politics are supposed to be a male-dominated area and women are not supposed to participate in state affairs. The word Politics draws its roots from the Greek word polity, which has often been presented as a male-dominated affair or gathering.
(5) Women lack without man’s support–
As we have seen after the implementation of the 73rd and 74th amendment act in 1994, women got 33 per cent of reservations at a lower level of administration but how this was miss-used we all noted that how on behalf of elected women representative was ruled by there husband call this reflected the incompetence of women in holding and exercising powers, so just don’t demand power learn how to use those power.
(6) Women are self-obsessed with safety issues–
Women, most of the time, don’t feel safe working outside because of safety issues. Most of the news that we hear, regarding the alarming number of rape, and ve-teasing cases, makes the women feel unsafe to work outside.
(7) Women are willing to make a balance between family and politics–
Women in India are more inclusive to obeying the family arrangement by performing the associated tasks and obligations which mostly became the reason for limited attention to outside affairs to conceal their deficiency they barely blame the man for all this
(8) Women in India primarily Lack financial resources–
The most important reason which I found for their less visibility in politics is that economic constraints to sustain the Indian political people must be economically sound, I know many of you will not agree by stating many examples but by considering those as an exception, I can say this because this a hard reality for both genders.
Therefore, as a Democratic society, we need to focus on delivering the objective of equal representation of every section of our society and when it comes to women our society had shifted its vision and approach so that women can get uplifted, but it is not possible that only legislative backing can bring the change, it is the duty of entire society to identify all such reasons responsible for the oppression and by collective action, effective change can be achieved.
Adopting the women’s reservation can’t fulfil the objective of women’s empowerment instead of that we need to focus on the other aspects which are the fundamental obstacle to political empowerment, subsequently, we also need to change the feminist mindset that only targets the mentality of the man and ignores other factors, after working on all identified reasons, women’s political development is possible until then we can’t do much for women.
