Randomized Thoughts

A lot is said about Women's bill to be discussed in the floor of parliament. The cartoonscape in The Hindu has saved me the trouble of describing the plight of this particular bill till today.

To be fair I am quite confused about this bill myself. Not because of the message and social uplift that this bill promises to bring about, but on the grounds of its implementation on basis of reservation. Its been said that 33% of the all legislature is to have women representation. That would mean that the all candidates of 33% constituencies should be women, and these reserved constituency will have to take turns. So one in every 3 elections all constituency in India would see an all-women electoral candidature for legislative bodies. Now this is more worrying. Not that I am against women, but it is a pure violation of article 15 of our constitution. Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth is the most fundamental essence of any civilized community. Else what separates us from Taliban? Now there is an attempt by state to discriminate men from contesting election (even though it is once in 3 elections). I feel we Indians are not quite sure of what kind of constitution we want. We are running around in circles just like the bill depicted in the cartoonscape.

What is even more worrying is that fact that to uplift women, we actually need to pass a bill. I am quite ashamed that this country does not have many women representing its people. But shouldn't this representation come out of social reforms and change in people's perceptions rather than forced reservation?

Politicians talk about women being oppressed and exploited. They are not given equal opportunity as men. My contention is that only poor are being oppressed and exploited today irrespective of sex. A poor man does not have the same opportunity as that of a rich lady. I don't want to dwell into communism, but the point I want to make is that the approach we are taking will not head this country in right direction.

A better suggestion would be to have reservation of 33% for people living below poverty line. Surely that would be a better reservation policy than on the basis of sex, caste or religion.