Legislative gender quotas and Indian exceptionalism: The travails of the Women's Reservation Bill

Comparative Politics

Volumn 39, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 63-82

  Randall, Vicky ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33845493700     PISSN: 00104159     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/20434021     Document Type: Review

References (76)

1. The joint select committee received 102 memoranda and sixteen oral contributions. With some dissenting voices, it recommended passage of the bill. See Usha Thakkar, "Engendering Politics for Good Governance: Advocacy by Women for Social and Political Change," paper presented to Fifth International Conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research, Cape Town, July 7-10 2002, available at www.jhu.edu/~istr/conferences/volume/ thakkar.pdf (accessed April 19, 2004).
2. Quoted from Times of India in
3. Laura Dudley Jenkins, "Competing Inequalities: The Struggle over Legislative Seats for Women in India," International Review of Social History, 44 (1999, Supplement), 53-75.
4. Beth Atcheson, "Women Shouted Down in India's Parliament," CBC News Online, May 6, 2003, at http://cbc.ca/news.
5. Madhu Kishwar, "Women's Marginal Role in Politics," Manushi, 97 (November-December 1996), 11.
6. National Election Study 1996, CSDS.
7. Neema Kudva, "Engineering Elections: The Experiences of Women in Panchayati Raj in Karnataka, India," International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 16 (2003), 445-63.
8. Based on figures available from www.indian-elections.com/candidates/ (accessed April 29, 2004).
9. Figures available from http://parliamentofindia.nic.in (accessed September 6, 2004).
10. P. Eashvaraiah, "Reservation for Women in Parliament and Legislatures: An Antidote to Their Marginalisation," Social Action, 53 (April-June 2003), 132-44.
11. Figures up to 1998 from Forum for Democratic Reforms, "Enhancing Women's Representation in Legislatures," Manushi, No. 116 (2000), 6;
12. figure for 2004 based on data from Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, Data on Women in Commonwealth Parliaments and Legislatures (posted August 2004), at www.cpahq.org/topics/women.
13. Anne Phillips, "Democracy and Representation: Or Why Should It Matter Who Our Representatives Are?," in Anne Phillips, ed., Feminism and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 224-40.
14. Mala N. Htun and Mark P. Jones, "Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-Making: Electoral Quotas and Women's Leadership in Latin America," in N. Craske and M. Molyneux, ed., Gender and the Politics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), pp. 32-56.
15. Mi Yung Yoon, "Democratization and Women's Legislative Representation in Sub-Saharan Africa," Democratization, 8 (2001), 169-90.
16. Bey-Ling Sha, "Gender and Party Politics: Case Study of the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan," in G. Rawnsley and M. Y. Rawnsley, eds., Political Communications in Greater China: Construction and Reflection of Identity (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003).
17. Documentary material included the records of relevant Lok Sabha debates. I am also grateful to the Centre for Women's Development Studies in New Delhi for access to their compendious gender quotas cut-tings file.
18. See Times of India, Apr. 24, 2000.
19. For a dissenting verdict, see Medha Nanivadekar, "Dual-Menber Constituencies: Resolving Deadlock on Women's Reservation," Economic and Political Weekly, Oct. 25, 2003.
20. Caste is an elaborate system of social stratification, based on birth or ascription, whose roots extend back thousands of years. Although changing in character over time and eroded in some urban contexts, it remains a major social force.
21. Interview with Yogendra Yadav, electoral analyst and fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, January 30, 2004.
22. Lok Sabah debates, September 13, 1996, Col 336.
23. Eleventh Lok Sabha Debates, May 16, 1997, 476,
24. cited in Christine Keating, "The Women's Reservation Bill in India: Disrupting the Postcolonial Sexual Contract," paper presented to American Political Science Association Conference, Boston, August 2002, p. 18.
25. Sumit Mitra, Javed M. Ansari, and Saba Naqvi Bhaumik, "Scuttling the Bill," India Today, July 27, 1998;
26. interview with Vasanthi Raman, Centre for Women's Development Studies, February 4, 2004. There are no available official figures for other backward caste representation in the Lok Sabha.
27. In November 2003 she became chief minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh.
28. See Radha Kumar, "From Chipko to Sati: The Contemporary Indian Women's Movement," in Nivedita Menon, ed., Gender and Politics in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
29. The seven organizations are the All-India Women's Conference, formed in 1927 and aligned with the Congress Party; the National Federation of Indian Women, formed in 1954 and aligned with the Communist Party of India; the All-India Democratic Women's Association, formed in 1981 and associated with the Communist Party (Marxist); the Centre for Women's Development Studies; the YWCA; the Joint Women's Programme, linked with the Church of India; and the Mahila Dakshata Samiti (Women's Empowerment Committee), formed in 1977.
30. Interview with Ranjana Kumari, its Coordinator, and Director of the Centre for Social Research (a nongovernmental organization), February 6, 2004.
31. Discussed in Laura Dudley Jenkins, Identity and Identification in India (New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003);
32. Jana Everett, Women and Social Change in India (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979).
33. Cited in Jenkins, "Competing Inequalities."
34. Noted in Shirin Rai, "Democratic Institutions, Political Representation and Women's Empowerment: The Quota Debate in India," Democratization, 6 (Autumn 1999), 84-99.
35. Shirin Rai, "Class, Caste and Gender: Women in Parliament in India," in International IDEA, Women in Politics: Women in Parliament: Case Studies, 2, available at http://wwww.idea.int/women/parl/studies4a.htm. (accessed April 16, 2004).
36. Mary E. John, "Democracy, Patriarchies and Reservations for Women: A Note," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 6 (1999), 148.
37. See Vasanthi Rahman, "The Implementation of Quotas for Women: The Indian Experience," paper for the Regional Workshop on the Implementation of Quotas: Asian Experiences, hosted by IDEA, Jakarta, September 25, 2002.
38. "Prime Minister Moots Special Facilities, Reservation for Women," The Hindu, Mar. 9, 1999, cited in Keating, p. 11.
39. Col 333 Fri Sept. 13, 11th Lok Sabha series Vol. 15 No 230.
40. According to Brinda Karat, "Politics sans Morality," Telegraph, May 17, 2003.
41. Drude Dahlerup, "Comparative Studies of Electoral Gender Quotas," paper presented at the International IDEA Workshop, Peru, February 2003.
42. See Kathleen Bruhn, "Whores and Lesbians: Political Activism, Party Strategies, and Gender Quotas in Mexico," Electoral Studies, 22 (2003), 101-19;
43. Teresa Sacchet, "Making Women Count: Campaigns for Gender Quotas in Brazil" (Ph.D. diss., University of Essex, 2003).
44. Miki Caul, "Political Parties and the Adoption of Candidate Gender Quotas: A Cross-National Analysis," The Journal of Politics, 63 ( 2001), 1214-29.
45. Susan Franceschet, "State-based Strategies for Improving Women's Representation: Lessons from Latin America," paper presented at the Forty-fifth International Studies Convention, Montreal, March 2004.
46. David Plumb, "El Partido Por La Democracia: The Birth of Chile's Postmaterialist Catch-All Left," Party Politics, 4 (1998), 93-106.
47. Yoon.
48. Anne Marie Goetz and Shireen Hassim, "In and against the Party: Women's Representation and Constituency-Building in Uganda and South Africa," in Maxine Molyneux and Shahra Razavi, eds., Gender, Justice, Development and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 306-43.
49. Bruhn, p. 110.
50. Goetz and Hassim.
51. Bey-Ling Sha, "Gender and Party Politics."
52. Bruhn; Sacchet.
53. Details from Congress website, www.congress.org.in/, accessed June 6, 2004.
54. Figures provided by Election Commission of India, www.eci.gov.in/GE2004, accessed May 12, 2004.
55. See Abhilasha Kumari and Sabina Kidwai, Crossing the Sacred Line: Women's Search for Political Power (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1998), p. 79.
56. Details from BJP website, www.bjp.oig, accessed June 6, 2004.
57. Kumari and Kidwai
58. The quotation is from Amrita Basu, "Feminism Inverted: The Gendererd Imagery and Real Women of Hindu Nationalism," in Tanika Sarkar and Amrita Basu, eds., Women and the Hindu Right (Delhi: Kali for Women, 1995), p. 164. However, she was referring specifically to three women politicians, Vijayraje Scindia, Uma Bharati, and Sadhui Rithambara.
59. Kumari and Kidwai.
60. Sudha Pai, Dalit Assertion and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution (New Delhi: Sage 2002), p. 100.
61. Miki Caul, "Women's Representation in Parliament: The Role of Political Parties," Party Politics, 5 (1999), 79-98.
62. Granville Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 153.
63. For instance, see Gail Omvedt, "Breaking the Majority's Tyranny," at www.ambedkar.org, accessed September 14, 2004.
64. Kenneth Benoit, "Models of Electoral System Change," Electoral Studies, 23 (2004), 363-89.
65. See the dataset, "Democratic Electoral Systems around the World 1946-2000," provided by Matt Golder, at http://homepages.nyu.edu/%7Emrg217/ elections.html. I have not been able to find a single case of change away from proportional representation with the possible exception of Kyrgyzstan, while cases moving toward it are legion.
66. International IDEA, Handbook of Electoral System Design (Stockholm: IDEA 2002), p. 2.
67. Mona Lena Krook, "Reforming Representation: The Diffusion of Candidate Gender Quotas Worldwide," paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual International Convention, Montreal, March 2004.
68. Mona Lena Krook, "Reforming Representation: The Diffusion of Candidate Gender Quotas Worldwide", International Studies Association Annual International Convention, Ibid., p. 10.
69. Jacqueline Peschard, "The Quota System in Latin America: General Overview," International IDEA (2002), 2. See www.idea.int/.
70. Goetz and Hassim.
71. Trevor Munroe, "Transforming Jamaican Democracy through Transparency: A Framework for Action," in Laura Newman, ed., Fostering Transparency and Preventing Corruption in Jamaica (Atlanta: Carter Center, 2002), p. 14.
72. Quoted from Jamaica's completed questionnaire on implementing the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and Commonwealth Plan of Action on Gender and Development (2003), p. 15, accessed on www.thecommonwealth.org.
73. This phrase was apparently coined in Southeast Asia. See Dahlerup, "Comparative Studies."
74. Dahlerup, "Comparative Studies." Ibid.
75. See Htun and Jones. The participant was the Brazilian congresswoman Marta Suplicy.
76. Krook.