Deferred empowerment

At a march to Parliament demanding 33 per cent reservation for women, on May 6. - RAVEENDRAN/AFP

While the government defers the Women's Reservation Bill for want of `consensus', it secures the passage of a number of important pieces of legislation, sometimes with apparent haste.

THE Budget session of Parliament saw yet another attempt to deny women their share in power. There seemed to be near-total unanimity among most political parties, including some of those who claim to support the Women's Reservation Bill, somehow to stall the Bill as long as possible. If the government is serious about passing the Bill, it will have to adopt the majority route instead of the consensus route. A number of other important bills were either adopted or introduced during the Budget session.

It is clear from the stands taken by various political parties after the Bill was prevented from being tabled in the Lok Sabha on May 6, that there is no unanimity on the issue. The Samajwadi Party (S.P.) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) want separate quotas for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Dalits and minorities within the seats that will be reserved for women in Parliament and the State Assemblies. The Janata Dal(United) is also in favour of quotas within the quota for women. The Left wants one-third of the seats in Parliament and the State Assemblies to be reserved for women and rejects the concept of `quota within quota' and the suggestion that the right of reservation be vested with the political parties. The Congress(I) wants the Bill to be passed in its present form without any provision for the reservation of seats on the basis of caste. It has rejected the suggestion made by the Election Commission (E.C.) to authorise political parties to nominate women candidates to one-third of the seats in Parliament and the State Assemblies because it feels that it will dilute the reservation scheme. However, the Shiv Sena and the Samata Party are in favour of adopting the E.C.'s suggestion.

All attempts to arrive at a consensus on the issue have failed since 1996, when the Bill was sought to be introduced for the first time in the Lok Sabha. The manner in which the Bill was stalled on May 6 has given rise to doubts whether the political parties have conspired to give it a silent burial. At an all-party meeting on March 7, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee declared that parliamentary democracy was run on the principle of majority and that even if there was no consensus on the women's reservation Bill, a majority vote would see it through. After the meeting, Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Vijay Malhotra said: "We want the Bill passed in this session itself, with or without consensus". He said the passage of the Bill would be ensured by "the majority" opinion.

In the event, the Bill, which supposedly enjoyed the support of three-fourths of the members, was deferred indefinitely because of the vociferous opposition of a handful of members. The tenacity of purpose with which the government got the Prevention of Terrorism Bill passed in the face of widespread opposition is worth recalling.

Apparently, there was widespread jubilation across the political spectrum over the blocking of the Bill. Members from the Congress(I) and the BJP were learnt to have congratulated their colleagues from the SP and the RJD on their success.

In the case of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, the government took recourse to unusual parliamentary practices such as convening a joint session of the two Houses. On the last day of the Budget session, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said: "We could have got the Bill passed, but for that we would have had to remove the protesting members with the help of the marshals. It would have created ugly scenes in the House. Even though the government wanted to go ahead with it, the Congress (I) and the Left parties said that they did not support such a move, and the BJP agreed with them". Sushma Swaraj said that the "government would bring the Bill in the first week of the monsoon session," but the task of working out a consensus has been left to the Speaker. An all-party meeting has been convened by Speaker Manohar Joshi on June 16, but there is no likelihood of a consensus emerging on the issue.

Congress (I) president Sonia Gandhi had written to the Prime Minister demanding that the Bill be passed in its present form in the Budget session. In order to prove that it was not shying away from the task, the government placed the Bill in Parliament, so that eventually the blame for failure could be shifted elsewhere. If the government had not brought the Bill in the Budget session, the Congress (I) would have projected it as a major failure.

EVEN after a decade, the women's reservation issue remains mired in political one-upmanship. On May 6, discussing the Bill, the Congress(I)'s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Shivraj Patil said that the Congress(I) supported the Bill in its present form and was not in favour of the concept of providing for further reservation within the women's quota because it was likely to impart a "casteist" character to the Constitution. This provoked an uproar from members of the S.P. and the RJD who protested against the use of the word "casteist" and demanded that it be expunged from the records. Members of the Samata Party and the JD(U) joined the chorus of protests and, amid slogan-shouting, the protestors stormed the well of the House. They declared that they would not allow the passage of the Bill in its present form; some of them sat in a dharna in the well of the House. The Speaker adjourned the House until 2 p.m. When the House was reconvened, the members continued to shout slogans, declaring that they would not allow the Bill to be passed. That forced the Speaker to adjourn the House for the day.

The CPI(M) blamed the government for deferring the Bill and said that by referring the matter to the Speaker, the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was "abdicating its responsibility". Somnath Chatterjee, the party's leader in the Lok Sabha, pointed out that although the Bill had the support of major parties whose MPs constituted three-fourths of the Lok Sabha, "the government failed to ensure that the Bill was taken up for consideration and adoption. The main responsibility for this lies with the Vajpayee government, which utterly failed to stand by its commitment".

A statement issued by the CPI(M) Polit Bureau said that the arguments advanced by those who opposed the Bill were "spurious" because reservation would have ensured that women from all strata had representation in the State legislatures and Parliament. Reiterating its support for the legislation in its present form, the CPI(M) said that all parties should abide by the democratic process of decision-making in Parliament. CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet told Frontline that the idea of giving political parties the power to nominate women candidates - a demand raised by parties such as the Samata Party, the RJD and the Shiv Sena - was "not acceptable" to the Left because it would make a farce of the concept of reservation. "This suggestion is useless. It does not guarantee election, it guarantees only the filing of nominations, because parties will only give losing seats to women candidates," Surjeet said. However, he said that the Left could consider the proposal to bring down the percentage of reservation if that would lead to a consensus. "Or else, we shall demand that the Bill be passed in its present form with majority vote," he said.

The Congress(I), on the other hand, is willing to consider the reservation within reservation formula, provided that the quota level is maintained at 33 per cent. Congress(I) spokesperson Jaipal Reddy said: "We are unreservedly in favour of women's reservation and are willing to consider other proposals such as the reservation within the reservation formula, provided the level is 33 per cent and the government too agrees for it." Jaipal Reddy told Frontline that the E.C.'s proposal to authorise parties to nominate women candidates to one-third of the seats was not acceptable to the Congress(I) because "it would dilute the reservation scheme".

According to RJD leader Raghuvansh Pratap Singh, "only parties led by Brahmins would oppose separate reservation for OBCs, Dalits and minorities. The concept of reservation, after all, is meant for those who cannot make it on their own. It is not for those who can already contest and win from a general seat. Why should anybody object to giving the deprived their share in power?" Former Union Minister and JD(U) president Sharad Yadav said that the very concept of reservation was meant for the deprived sections of women, and not for those who were educated and already empowered. According to him, if there was no separate provision for the deprived, the real purpose of reservation would be defeated. Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav insists that Dalits, OBCs and minorities should be given separate reservation. But according to sources close to him, he could change his stand and settle for a lower percentage of seats, provided others agree.

If the government is really serious about forging a consensus, certain provisions in the Bill, such as the one on the rotation of constituencies, should be amended. That particular provision has been universally rejected because its implementation would mean that a member would not return to a constituency for re-election and therefore would not be accountable to the voters.

According to political observers, the E.C.'s proposal seems to be accepted widely; even those who are opposed to the Bill in its present form have insisted that parties be given the power to nominate women in one-third of the seats. With certain checks and balances that will ensure that women candidates are not allotted only `losing' seats, the Congress (I) and the Left parties can be persuaded to consider the proposal, they say. But it would be a difficult task, given the fact that they have already voiced their opposition to this course.

If the meeting on June 16 remains inconclusive, the government will be left with no choice but to adopt the majority route or drop the Bill alltogether. The Prime Minister hopes that the Bill can be passed. He has said that he is determined to succeed where others have failed.

THE landmark Bills that have been either passed or introduced in the Budget session include the much-awaited Constitution (97th Amendment) Bill, 2003, which seeks to prevent bulk defections and restrict the size of ministries to 10 per cent of the strength of the House. The Bill, by proposing the deletion of para three of the 10th Schedule of the Constitution, which legalises a split within a party if it involves defection by one-third of the members, provides for the automatic disqualification of members who either defy the party whip or change sides in bulk. In its statement of objectives, the Bill says that there have been demands from time to time to amend the anti-defection law as it has not been able to achieve the desired goal of checking defections. The Bill states that as observed by the Constitution review committee, the tendency to form abnormally large Ministries at the Centre and in the States needs to be curbed by enacting a law. The Bill, which has been referred to the standing committee of Parliament, is aimed at cleansing the political system. Another landmark Bill, which will go a long way in achieving financial discipline, is the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Bill, which was passed by the Lok Sabha. The Bill, which was introduced in 2000, allows the government to set fiscal targets for both revenue and expenditure by framing rules. Failure to meet the targets would not only embarrass the government, but also put a question mark over the reliability of targets and the methodologies used to fix them.

The government also introduced the National Judicial Commission Bill, which provides for the setting up of a commission to appoint judges. Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley said that the purpose of the Bill was to make the appointment of Judges more transparent. The Electricity Bill, 2003, which, among other things, provides for more than one licensee for power distribution in an area, was passed by Parliament.

In all, while the Lok Sabha passed 16 Bills in addition to the finance Bill, the Rajya Sabha passed 12 Bills, which is a record of sorts. Other important Bills, which have been passed by both Houses, include the one allowing proxy voting for defence personnel, the one to ban tobacco product advertisements and the one to impose service tax on a number of additional services. The Delimitation Bill, which provides for making the census 2001 data the base for the delimitation of constituencies, was also introduced in the Lok Sabha.

In fact, the government appeared to be rushing ahead with so many Bills that at times it led to protests by Opposition members. Towards the fag end of the last working day of the session, four important Constitution Amendment Bills, which were not listed in the agenda were introduced, leading to a walk-out by Opposition members. The Bills included the controversial Illegal Migrants Law (Repealing and Amending) Bill, relating to Assam, and the National Judicial Commission Bill.

According to Sushma Swaraj, one of the achievements of the Budget session was the reduction in the number of hours lost owing to disruptions. Thanks to a cooperative Opposition, only 10.35 hours was lost in the Lok Sabha, and 8.39 hours in the Rajya Sabha - the lowest figures since 1999. Sushma Swaraj thanked the Opposition for cooperating with the government in getting the legislative business completed.

Had the same cooperation been extended to the Women's Reservation Bill, Budget session 2003 would have acquired historic importance.