This chapter examines whether the current debates about quotas for women in political institutions in India can form part of a wider debate on women’s empowerment. I do this by exploring the reasons for these demands by women’s groups in a country where quotas have had a problematic symbolic history of nearly forty years. The debate on quotas in India has reflected disquiet about women’s engagement with state institutions, with the perceived elitism of ‘the women’s movement’, and has challenged women’s groups to address issues of difference among women based on caste and class. One of the important questions for women’s groups has been whether this engagement with the state is appropriate at a time when the pressures of globalization and liberalization are increasing social inequalities and tensions within the country. Surely any debate on women’s empowerment should focus on questions about improving women’s life-chances rather than increasing their political representation in state institutions that are implicated, through policy-making, in the very process of globalization that is adversely affecting poor women in India?
The term empowerment has largely been ignored in mainstream Political Science. For example, it does not appear at all in the Oxford Dictionary of Politics (McLean 1996). On the other hand, empowerment has found great currency within feminist discourses. From early on, debates about the gendered nature of participation in local politics have been important within feminist politics (Phillips 1991). While some have taken issue with the costs of participation (Phillips 1991), the focus has been on the concept of participation rather than on empowerment. Empowerment as a concept has emerged out of debates on education and increasingly within the literature on social movements. ‘The notion of empowerment was intended to help participation perform one main political function – to provide development with a new source of legitimation’, writes Majid Rahnema in the Development Dictionary (1992: 122). Empowerment legitimates oppositional discourse as well as oppositional social movements, programmes, methodologies and policies – both macro and micro. The feminist literature on politics has re-emphasized empowerment as development. Bystydzienski, for example, defines empowerment as ‘a process by which oppressed persons gain some control over their lives by taking part with others in development of activities and structures that allow people increased involvement in matters which affect them directly’ (1992: 3). Feminists have used the term empowerment in preference to power for many reasons – its focus on the oppressed, rather than the oppressors, its emphasis on ‘power to’ rather than starting with ‘power over’ and its insistence upon power as enabling, as competence rather than dominance (Bystydzienski 1992: 3). In the 1990s the concept of empowerment expanded to include institutional strategies for empowerment that led to a focus on the under-representation of women in political institutions at all levels of governance. The Beijing Declaration, for example, links women’s participation in institutional politics with their empowerment in social and economic life. ‘The empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of women’s social, economic and political status is essential for the achievement of both transparent and accountable government and administration and sustainable development in all areas of life’ (UN 1996: 109).
Empowerment is a seductive term. It encompasses a politics that opposes the state on the one hand, and the economic forces of neo-liberal markets on the other. The actors in this oppositional politics are ‘the people’, variously defined and identified. This categorization is important for suggesting an alternative model of politics, one based on needs articulated by the people rather than the state, and political processes that are participatory, democratic and close to home, rather than representative and bureaucratized in far-away corridors of state power. Empowerment, then, is the knowing and the doing; the feasibility of politics that allow us to feel empowered whatever our contexts. This is the great seduction. What became obscured in this discourse of empowerment are wider political implications of the concept as well as strategies of empowerment.
While much is said about participatory politics within the empowerment framework, there is little reflection upon the machinery of social and state power. It has been argued that empowerment:
is not a process organised from the helm of government, but it does require a strong state, that is, a state in which executive power is centralised, and departments (or provinces) are not colonised, and also one in which security agencies are not a law unto themselves …. [T]his might enable people to take greater advantage of the opportunities available to them in the existing market structures, and would in any case be a necessary condition for changes in those structures to achieve their stated aims of income or asset redistribution.
(Friedman 1992: 7)
This points clearly to the importance of the state, its politics, ideology and institutions – bureaucratic as well as political (political parties, for example) – as part of the debate on empowerment. Without such a multilayered analysis, I would argue that the discourse of empowerment is not really a discourse of power. It addresses audiences as if they were all potential converts to ‘the cause’. Further, there is a tendency to homogenize the actors engaged in struggles for empowerment. ‘The people’, or ‘women’, are presented without sufficient differentiation. As the debate on quotas below demonstrates, the need to focus on the politics of difference among women is important for the credibility of strategies of empowerment as well as for their long-term viability. I do not seek to de-legitimize the concept of empowerment. On the contrary, I seek to reinstate it, but taking the issue of power into account: asking empowerment of whom, by whom, through what, and for what.
The current debates on institutional strategies for women’s empowerment in India are examined below. I draw on my recent work with Indian feminists engaged in this debate, as well as earlier work with women parliamentarians, to argue that social class, political ideology and communal identities are important to our understanding of this current phase of feminist politics in India. As Catherine Hoskyns and I have argued elsewhere, the issue of class is at the heart of the process of engendering development, and it is at our own peril that we forget it (1998). This is not simply to forestall a backlash, but also to address issues of difference among women, as well as among women and men, and to rethink women’s empowerment.
On 22 December 1992, the Indian Parliament passed the Constitution (73rd and 74th) Amendment Acts. These amendments ‘enshrined in the Constitution certain basic and essential features of Panchayati Raj Institutions [PRI, institutions of local government] to impart certainty, continuity and strength to them’ (Matthews 1997: 22). They not only responded to a growing political demand for decentralization of power after the 1990s crisis over governability, but also to the emerging voice of women’s groups demanding greater visibility for women in politics. ‘A unique feature of the new phase in panchayats [village councils] and municipalities in India is that it has ensured one-third representation for women in the local bodies and one-third of the offices of chairpersons at all levels in rural and urban bodies for them’ (Matthews 1997: 25). This has created the possibility for about 1,000,000 women to be elected to village panchayats and urban municipalities; so far 716,234 women have held elected positions in the country, and in some states, such as West Bengal, more than the mandatory 33.3 per cent women have been elected. More remarkably, all political parties cooperated to pass this legislation.
The 1996 elections in India resulted in a parliament with fewer women members than the last three – women contested only 11 per cent of the total seats. This parliament has only thirty-six women members of parliament (MPs) out of a total of 545, as opposed to forty-four in the previous one. At the same time, the coalition that eventually returned to government committed itself to introducing legislation ensuring a quota for women of 33 per cent in future Indian parliaments. This would ensure that out of 545 seats in the Lok Sabha, 182 seats go to women. Constituencies reserved for women would not be fixed, but would rotate at random. All parties, irrespective of their ideological standpoints, initially supported this legislation. The Bill was introduced in the first term of the new BJP-led government, but it has been referred to a Joint Select Committee of the Indian Parliament due to differences over details. The debate on the Bill in the Indian press reveals a lack of general political will among parties to pass the 81st Constitution Amendment Bill that would ensure the quota. Women’s groups have largely supported the measure, though some important voices within the women’s movements have spoken out against the Bill.
One could speculate about the reasons why the various political parties, which supported the quota for women in panchayats, have been more reluctant regarding similar legislation at the parliamentary level. Could it be that enhanced representation of women in the national parliament spells a far greater and immediate challenge to the gendered status quo within the party political system? The panchayats, while symbolic of grassroots democracy in India, have never been resourced well enough to affect the party political process in Indian politics. Or is it that the pattern of quota systems in India has shown that elite-based strategies of empowerment are less helpful to groups seeking greater recognition than those based upon grassroots institutions? The message from established political parties and state institutions is mixed. While a strong women’s movement has been able to politicize the issue of gender representation successfully, mainstream political bodies have not embraced this agenda wholeheartedly.
At this point it is also important to consider the reasons for the near consensus among women’s groups regarding the issue of quotas. While many women’s groups have supported the move for quotas (a significant number of these are attached to political parties), some feminists have opposed this move as ‘tokenist’. The first group focuses on under-representation of women in party politics; the second is concerned about the elitist character of parliamentary politics and the dangers women face in seeking inclusion into this overwhelmingly male space (Kapoor 1996: 11; Kishwar 1996: 2). Feminists who oppose the Bill do so as much on grounds of detail as principles. Kishwar, for example, also opposes reserving constituencies for women where they contest only against other women, thus ghettoizing them. She wants a system of ‘multi-seat constituencies where one out of three candidates has to be a woman’ (1996: 2). Concerns about co-optation and elitism worry many feminist and women’s groups in India.
The link between reservations in Parliament and ‘empowerment’ of women is at best tenuous, and may even be a way of closing off possibilities of further radicalization of Indian politics …. If we attempt to recover feminist politics as subversion, … we would need to move away from politics as merely seeking space within already defined boundaries of power.
(Menon 1997: 41)
Catherine Hoskyns and I argue that:
policies based on a recognition that certain groups are under represented can also be seen as a means of political gate-keeping, and that in certain circumstances the recognition of gender-based groups may be seen as less disruptive of the hierarchy of power relations than the recognition of groups more clearly based on class. ‘Gender’ can be accommodated on this reading – but only if it loses its class dimension.
We believe ‘the privileging of gender over class, together with the grip of the political parties on access to the political system, results in a particular profile of women representatives which in turn raises issues about accountability’. Moreover, ‘this selective inclusion of women in the political process is important – but inadequate in challenging the established hierarchies of power relations’ (Hoskyns and Rai 1998: 345–65). If development agendas are to be rearticulated, if transformation of the lives of women has to take place in tandem with the gender relations within which they are enmeshed, then the question of economic and social class relations has to be dealt with.
For the moment, the main thrust of academic research and institutional initiatives continues to focus on categories of difference other than class. The salience of class in political life remains weak and representation continues to be regarded as a strategy for reordering political hierarchies. I would argue that this political bias is reflective of what Nancy Fraser has called the politics of affirmation (1995: 68–93). She argues that while justice requires both recognition of difference and an insistence upon redistribution of socio-economic resources, currently the two have become disassociated. Representation, in this analysis, would be a strategy of recognition rather than redistribution, thus limiting its transformative potential.
Fraser distinguishes two broad approaches to remedying injustice that occur across the recognition–redistribution divide. The affirmation approach focuses on ‘correcting inequitable outcomes of social arrangements without disturbing the underlying framework that generates them’. In contrast, the transformative remedy focuses on ‘correcting inequitable outcomes precisely by restructuring the underlying generative framework’ (Fraser 1995: 82). Whereas affirmative remedies reinforce group differences, transformative remedies tend to destabilize them in the long run. Fraser sees the combination of socialism and deconstruction as the remedy most suited to resolving the recognition–redistribution dilemma. In doing so she seems to suggest that destabilizing group difference is the long-term strategy best suited to the process of transformation. Iris Marian Young’s argument with Fraser on this issue points to the problem with this binary analysis, which positions choices in a zero-sum fashion. Her position on the value of recognizing difference, and of policy outcomes flowing from this recognition in terms of group rights, suggests a different route to redistribution (Young 1997). However, Fraser’s discussion of the recognition–redistribution dilemma does pose important questions for a study of gender and representation. How far can representation as a concept and strategy meet the needs of the majority of women? The debate in India about the concrete provisions of the quota legislation is salutary in this regard.
The introduction of the 81st Amendment Bill, and indeed the legislative changes in the form of the 74th Amendment Act, demonstrate the importance of women’s political representation in Indian politics. The success of the women’s movement in placing the issue of political under-representation of women on the agenda of political parties and governments begs two questions. Why has this issue become important for the women’s movement in the last decade? How have women’s movements been able to get recognition for this agenda? In part this is perhaps the result of the ‘troubling impasse’ (Omvedt 1993: 97) that the Indian women’s movements faced in the 1990s. The liberalization policies have seen women increasingly being pushed into the unorganized sector of work. The decline of the trade union movement – never very sensitive to women’s issues in the first place, but changing under pressure of the women’s movements – has also increased the vulnerability of working-class women. Despite tremendous struggles waged by women’s groups against violence against women, convictions have been difficult. The late 1980s also saw the hardening of divisions among women’s groups – between ‘academic’ and ‘activists’, between right- and left-wing women, between those working with mass organizations and those working with international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). In this context the early focus of women’s groups – on women’s work, violence and capitalist relations, in and outside the home – became obscured. The international context of women’s organizations also changed. While the demand for women’s inclusion in policy-making institutions appeared first in the late 1970s, it found increasing expression in the formulations of ‘women’s interests’ in the late 1980s and gathered momentum with Rajiv Gandhi’s proposals in 1991 for the reservation of seats for women in the village panchayats. Reservations (or quotas) have thus had a long and chequered history in India.
When the Indian state was taking shape in the 1940s, the question of caste dominated the debates about a new constitution as well as a new social order. The arguments were cast in both philosophical and pragmatic terms. Political equality could not be realized without social and economic equality, which were attached to the whole edifice of social power. In India, the caste system is the ‘steel frame’ that has underpinned Hindu society despite its polytheism and plurality. The inherent inequality of birth built into this system did not allow individuals a way out of their particular positioning in the social system. Individual efforts could not therefore work as a strategy for social mobility.
The Indian Constituent Assembly decided to enshrine in the constitution a special 9th Schedule that would allow the policies of affirmative action through reservation. The Congress Party leadership recognized that ignoring the issue of caste could lead to political instability that a fledgling democracy could ill afford. The legislation was based on the idea of ‘social backwardness’ that was seen as a social ‘placing [of] individuals/groups in particular disadvantageous position by delimiting their life chances’. The determinants of this ‘social backwardness’ were both the objective position of a group in terms of economic conditions in the social structure as well as the prevailing value system (Shah 1991: 601).
A further amendment to the original legislation in 1951 enabled the state to make ‘special provisions’ for the advancement of any socially and educationally ‘backward classes’ or for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Similar provision in Article 16(4) reserved posts for any ‘backward classes’ of citizens who in the opinion of the state are ‘not adequately represented in the services under the state’. These clauses refer to ‘classes of citizens’ and not individuals; group (minority) rights were thus acknowledged as important by the Indian political elites from the start. This recognition is the basis of the quota debates and demands concerning women. However, the question of caste has posed very divisive questions for the women’s groups engaged in these debates.
India’s one-party dominant political system has fractured since Indira Gandhi’s death in 1984. Today, coalition politics and caste interest groups are extremely visible and active in India. Parties based on regional and caste identities have gained prominence in the political process and system. At the time of the consideration of the quota legislation for women in parliament in 1993–4, the party consensus that had allowed a smooth passage of the 73rd Amendment Act broke down on the question of caste representation within quotas for women. Political parties like the Janata Party and the Samta Party argued fiercely that the quota for women should be distributed along caste lines; that the caste-based reservation already in place should be reflected in the newly proposed quota for women. On the other hand, other regional parties such as the AIDMK (All India Dravid Munetra Kadgam) have supported the Bill and given vital support to the initiative at the time when it was most needed. The saga of the non-passage of the Bill illustrates the fluidity of the Indian political situation – a fluidity that women’s groups have taken advantage of, and at the same time fallen foul of.
The arguments for quotas for women in representative institutions are fairly well rehearsed. Development policies are highly politically charged trade-offs between diverse interests and value choices. ‘The political nature of these policies is frequently made behind the closed door of bureaucracy or among tiny groups of men in a non-transparent political structure’ (Staudt 1991: 65). The question then arises, how are women to access this world of policy-making so dominated by men? The answers that have been explored within the Indian women’s movements have been diverse – political mobilization of women, lobbying political parties, moving the courts and legal establishments, constitutional reform, mobilization and participation in social movements such as the environmental movement, and civil liberties campaigns. It is only now, however, that women’s groups have come together to demand increased representation of women in India’s political institutions.
Women’s groups now argue that quotas for women are needed to compensate for the social barriers that have prevented women from participating in politics and thus making their voices heard. In order for women to be more than ‘tokens’ in political institutions, a level of presence that cannot be overlooked by political parties is required, hence the demand for a 33 per cent quota. The quota system acknowledges that it is the recruitment process, organized through political parties and supported by a framework of patriarchal values, which needs to carry the burden of change, rather than individual women. The alternative then is that there should be an acknowledgement of the historical social exclusion of women from politics, a compensatory regime (quotas) established, and ‘institutionalised … for the explicit recognition and representation of oppressed groups’ (Young 1990: 183–91). This demand for quotas has been formulated first with respect to grassroots institutions (panchayats). It reflects the unease felt by many women’s groups with elite politics and elite women (Agnihotri and Mazumdar 1995; CWDS 1994).
The National Commission for Women (NCW), set up in 1991, has consistently supported the demand for a quota for women in parliament and other representative institutions. In the 1996 elections, it called for all women voters to exercise their franchise in favour of women candidates regardless of the political party they represented. At one level this call reflected the Commission’s support for quotas for women. If the purpose of the quotas is to increase the number of women in parliament, then the gender variable is the most important one to consider at the time of voting. However, women’s groups in India have had close links with political parties. Consequently, the question of representativeness is also tied closely to the question of political platforms.
In a system which is party-based, whether it is men or women, they will represent the viewpoint of the party …. Women voters while making their choice [of candidates] will have to judge which of these platforms will be closest to viewing their concerns with sympathy. They will also have to judge which of these platforms is intrinsically against women’s equality and vote against the candidate regardless of whether it is a man or a woman.
(Karat 1996: 8)
This concern with party politics has been exacerbated by the growing mobilization of women by the right-wing political parties in the name of cultural authenticity and the recognition of women as bulwarks against the erosion of traditions. This calls for a political response from the women’s groups on the centre/left (CWDS 1994: 22–4). The consensus on the quota policy has also evolved with the successful enactment of the 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts. The feeling now is that these Acts will ensure women’s grassroots political involvement; that as women become active in panchayat politics, their ability to participate in national politics will increase. The question of elitism will thus be answered.
The consensus on a quota for women has also gained from the support (however ambivalent) of the political parties. Here I would point out the changing character of the Indian political system. The break up of the old system of one-party domination has also led to the mobilization of new constituencies. Most parties have identified women as an important and neglected constituency that should be brought into the political mainstream. This mobilization has become an issue only because of the strength of the women’s movement in India, but has taken different forms when different political parties have sought to engage women.2 The terms of engagement of various political parties have differed. While the right wing has supported an undifferentiated quota for women, parties with significant lower-caste constituencies have been generally more ambivalent, even when reflecting upon the need to mobilize women into their parties. The pressure on political parties to support the quota has been therefore matched by their concern about the terms on which the quota is to be constructed.
As the consensus around the need for a quota has evolved, new and important issues for women’s groups and movements have emerged, in particular the question of how to deal with difference among women. The current emphasis by women’s groups on the representation of women in political institutions can thus be read in the light of the tension between the politics of universalism, as symbolized in the Indian debates about citizenship, and the constant and real fear of co-optation of the feminist projects by the political elites.
At the theoretical level, two sets of arguments have been used to oppose the introduction of quotas: first, any quota policy is against the principle of equal opportunity and, therefore, inherently undemocratic – that it is also against the principle of meritocracy. The second argument regards the nature of interest representation – whose interests are being represented? Can women be regarded as a homogenous group? How are differences among women to be acknowledged and then translated into a quota policy? The motives of those opposing the Bill have varied too. Some are moved by dilemmas that women’s movements will have to face.
It [the legislation] can either be an authentic expression of womanhood in politics, in which case it profoundly alters the way we all are, or it can be a device to co-opt women into structures of power and ways of authoritarian thinking … and yet express a vision of the universe in which the male [remains] the principal agent.
(Das 1998: 1)
Others look clearly to the feasibility of such mechanisms of change. ‘How can these poor women panches (panchayat members) oppose the same men whose fields they work for livelihood? First organise them and put economic power in their hands, only then can they oppose men’ (Bhatt 1996: 13).
Some who initially supported the quota bills have swung into violent opposition because of the issue of minority representation. The two political parties that have derailed the passage of the Bill – the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal – have taken the position that, to be fair, the women’s reservation Bill has to reflect the caste distinctions prevalent in the country. ‘Gender justice, abstracted from all other forms of social justice, is an urban middle-class concept and, therefore, of little use’ (The Statesman 1998a: 8). These parties demand that the 33 per cent quotas be differentiated by a fixed quota for women belonging to OBCs (Other Backward Castes and minorities). They argue that the quota Bill is:
the creation of a new constituency which is not defined by social or economic criteria, strictly speaking, and whose characteristics are, in fact totally unknown – even the representatives of this [reserved] constituency would be unable to say what it is that women stand for and men don’t.
(The Statesman 1998a: 8)
Finally, there is the issue of priorities – whether the Indian political system faced with many challenges can also deal with another ‘divisive’ issue. ‘The country is facing many serious problems … it was not the right time to bring the women’s reservation bill’, said Prabhu Nath Singh of the Samata [Equality] Party in the debate over the Bill (The Statesman 1998b: 1).
Debate on the quota Bill has been bitter. Feminists and women’s groups have come in for violent verbal abuse from those opposing the Bill. They have been caricatured as ‘short-haired memsahibs’ and as ‘biwi [wife] brigades’, and their agendas have been called divisive for the country. However, the debate has also provoked serious discussions about the requirements needed to make women’s political participation meaningful, and how differences among women can be acknowledged while still demanding parliamentary quotas for women. Most of the arguments have been framed by liberal politics: an increased emphasis on education for girl children and women, gender-sensitivity training for police and bureaucrats, review of the functioning of family courts and various laws relating to issues like divorce, adoption and the share of property for women have all been aired as development policies needed to ensure women’s empowerment. The question before the feminist groups in India is how this increase in women’s numbers within parliament and at the local level will result in real benefits for women and women’s movements.
If we examine the profile of the women representatives in the 1991–6 Indian Parliament, we find that they were mostly middle-class, professional women, with few or no links with the women’s movement. A significant number of them accessed politics through their families, some through various student and civil rights movements, and some because of state initiatives to increase representation from the lower castes in India. This selective inclusion of women into mainstream politics has tended to maintain divisions within the women’s movement, posing difficult questions for representation of and by women – between feminist/professionals and activists, and between women members of different political parties (Rai 1997). This is not to suggest that middle-class women cannot or do not represent the interests of women from other social categories. The party political system for one does not recognize representation of particular interests – political parties appeal to as wide a spectrum of the population as possible. However, just as party political systems do not always live up to their promises, ideological considerations do affect the policy initiatives of the parties. Consequently, women qua women, especially as members of mainstream political parties, are also affected by their political ideologies and careers. This influences the issues they bring to the public domain, or feel able to support. While the issue of caste/class does not translate easily into the policy debates, it continues to pose significant dilemmas for those who seek to represent, as well as those who argue for the importance of women in mainstream political institutions.
A survey of women MPs also suggests that these women have benefited from the growing strength of the women’s movement, which has put the issue of women’s empowerment and participation in politics on the national agenda. However, none of these women have entered political life through the women’s movement. Their access to women’s organizations is generally limited to the women’s wing of their own parties. As party women with political ambitions, women MPs respond to the institutional incentives and disincentives that are put to them. All these factors limit the potential of women MPs to represent the interests of Indian women across a range of issues. As a result there seems to be little regular contact between women’s groups and women MPs. The exception here is of course the women’s wing of political parties. This does suggest the possibility that women MPs could facilitate contact between the party’s leadership and its women members. They are also consulted from time to time by the party leadership on issues regarding the family and women’s rights. However, non-party women’s groups do not seem to be approaching women MPs (Rai 1995).
In the context of my discussion of differences among women, there are several interesting aspects of the debate about quotas in India. First, a consensus has emerged among women’s groups and political parties that quotas are a valid and needed strategy for enhancing women’s participation. We need more information about how this consensus came to be crafted and on what terms. Second, this consensus has been far more stable in the village and township councils, i.e. at lower levels of governance, rather than at the national level. We could ask whether this has something to do with the extent to which the panchayat level quotas have challenged social hierarchies, or is predictably about the reluctance of male elites to allow women into national-level institutions where power is concentrated. Third, at various points, the question of greater representation has been discussed in terms of women ‘transforming politics’ by representing women’s interests in a deeply patriarchal society, especially in the context of high levels of political corruption (the expectation being that women are less corrupt than men). Here, we could ask, why are such burdens being placed on women and not men? More pertinently, given the discussion about differences among women, what are the philosophical reasons for greater representation of women in political institutions? Fourth, the question of differences among women was raised in the first instance by men, not the various women’s groups. The result was a rather nasty and divisive debate where those demanding a quota for women were characterized as manipulative, Westernized feminists wishing to keep low-caste women out of the equation and therefore working against the interests of the ‘ordinary Indian woman’. This serious charge was only partially challenged by women’s groups that largely endorsed an undifferentiated quota strategy.
The high political cost that women’s groups had to pay for assuming that issues of difference could be put to one side in a deeply divided social context raises questions about strategizing, and about the importance of dealing with differences among women within socio-economic contexts of great inequality. Here a consideration of the particularity of the political system becomes extremely important. In the Indian context, women’s groups demanding quotas for women should have taken into account the long-standing caste-based quotas. Also, consideration should have been given to the new alliances and fractures among political parties operating in an unfamiliar context of coalition politics in a country that until recently had one political party (Congress) dominating the political system and setting political agendas. Why an alliance of strong, sophisticated and active women’s movements was unable to do so is another question we could ask.
In making these points, I am not arguing against the need for greater representation of women in political institutions, nor denying the positive impact that such representation can have and has had. Neither am I in any sense intending to undervalue the campaigns and struggles on the part of women that have been necessary, and are still necessary, to make these advances possible. I am also not suggesting any easy correlation between class and social positioning on the one hand, and political behaviour on the other. My concern is to contribute to a more self-reflective analysis of what increasing representation on the basis of gender alone may mean in practice, and of what may be being erased in the process. For in India, and more broadly, the demand for greater representation of women in politics is taking place at a time when the conditions of women with the least access to resources and the fewest privileges are steadily deteriorating. I would argue further that this self-reflection is essential for a politics of alliances that women and women’s organizations need to engage in now to be effective in a still largely male political terrain.
The Indian example offers many insights to women engaged in similar struggles in other countries and contexts. First, it points to the ‘rethink’ within the Indian women’s movement regarding strategies of empowerment. A shift has occurred among these groups regarding an engagement with the state and its institutions. It is now increasingly seen as an essential part of women’s struggles to improve their lives. This shift is so fundamental that it crosses political party lines, creating a new consensus on this issue. In the words of the doyenne of Indian Women’s Studies, Vina Mazumdar, it is now accepted that ‘politics is not a dirty word’ for women. Changes in policy-making machineries are critical to the improvement of women’s life chances (Rai 1995). Second, the Indian example points to the importance of recognizing levels of governance in crafting strategies of political empowerment when women seek to engage the state. The quota Bill in 1993, which provided for 33 per cent seats in the village and town councils, passed without a murmur from any political party. Yet similar demands at the national level tore this consensus apart. Disassociating empowerment politics from local politics provides an explanation as well as a context for this discrepancy. Third, the Indian example critically points to the importance of recognizing differences among women and women’s groups. Because women’s groups arguing for the quota did not think it strategically necessary to highlight the issue of differences among women on the basis of caste, they were wrong footed politically. Empowerment for whom became the issue when they had asked the question, ‘Empowerment for what?’ Finally, the Indian case shows that there is no simple correlation between an enhanced visibility of women in political institutions and a sense of empowerment of ‘women’ in the polity in general. It reminds us that the question of empowerment cannot be disassociated from the question of relations of power within different socio-political systems. In order to challenge structural impediments to women’s participation in political institutions, we need to pay attention to the multifaceted power relations that contextualize that challenge. The debates on empowerment, and attempts to put them into practice, need to be opened up to these questions. Seductive as the language of empowerment is, it needs to, and can, be much more.
1 A version of this chapter was first published in Democratization 6(3) (autumn 1999), pp. 84–99. My thanks to the editors and anonymous referees for their comments.
2 For the particularity of right-wing mobilization of women, see U. Butalia and T. Sarkar, Women and right-wing movements: The Indian experiences (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1995).
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