July 27, 1998

Given the initial cross-party support, the Women's Reservation Bill was on the verge of being passed in Parliament. But nobody had reckoned with the fierce backlash of the political class to a law that could have redrawn the electoral map.

By Sumit Mitra, Javed M Ansari and Saba Naqvi Bhaumik

For the past three years, Parliament has witnessed a strange and, by now, predictable drama. Since 1996, successive governments from H.D. Deve Gowda's to Atal Bihari Vajpayee's have shed copious tears about the inadequate representation of women in the highest law-making bodies. They have each promised to set matters right through affirmative action that would guarantee at least 33 per cent women members of Parliament. They have each aroused the expectations of women by pressing for immediate legislation. And they have each been compelled to backtrack shamefacedly in the face of dogged resistance from those MPs who -- thanks to the politically correct overtones of the issue -- mask their general opposition to women's reservation with a clamour for sub-quotas.

This year, it was Vajpayee's turn to look pathetic. After two days of absolute bedlam in the Lok Sabha, the prime minister -- after even a longer pause than usual -- admitted feebly, "I don't think it will be possible to get the bill passed this session." It was the BJP-led Government's first real defeat. It was also a monumental personal setback for Vajpayee because -- despite the opposition of many of his coalition partners -- he had made the bill a symbol of his Government's progressive face. He had also secured Congress and left parties' support which provided him the numbers for a Constitutional amendment.

So, what exactly happened? Was it, as AIADMK chief J. Jayalalitha claimed, that men were "only paying lip service to the bill but in the depth of their hearts wanted to stall the bill"? Or was the real reason a little more complex than what the CPI's indefatigable Geeta Mukherjee described as "males of the world unite"?

MPs from the Other Backward Castes (OBCs), cutting across gender and party lines, played the leading role in stalling the bill. They were also supported by Muslim MPs. Last year, Janata Dal's Sharad Yadav even claimed that the only beneficiaries of the bill would be "parkati mahila" (short-haired women), a theme repeated volubly by Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav in the well of the Lok Sabha: "Social justice and the minorities are being throttled." The Mandalite anger stemmed from the refusal of the Joint Committee of Parliament, headed by Mukherjee, to countenance caste-based reservations within women's reservation. The 84th Constitution Amendment Bill has no provision for extra horizontal reservation, other than those for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. "No political party can ignore the interests of the OBCs," thundered Minister of State for Human Resources Development Uma Bharati.

If there was indeed no agreement on the quotas, why did the Government insist on the bill? Was it a grandstanding exercise that went horribly wrong? Or, was the Women's Bill a victim of political sabotage?

The Yadav Game
With just 37 MPs, the scheming duo managed to have its way

To the BJP and Congress, with followings among the enlightened and middle classes, it would have been heretical to take the lead in scuttling the Women's Reservation Bill. For the RJD, SP, BSP and their smaller localised counterparts, the relatively low involvement of women in the support bases was an advantage. They seized it with a brazenness that is rare even by the lax standards of Indian legislatures. Last Monday, as Union Law Minister M. Thambi Durai was about to introduce the bill, RJD member Surendra Prakash Yadav snatched it from the minister's hand. Accompanied by colleague Ajit Kumar Mehta, he then dashed to the Speaker's table to pick up more copies. Soon there was pandemonium in the well of the House, with the bill rolled into paper balls and pelted at the treasury benches. While most members looked on incredulously, both Laloo and Mulayam Singh Yadav moved into the well to pat their stormtroopers on the back.

Surendra Yadav now defends his action, saying the bill's passage would have "demolished all our political gains". However, the ugly scene in the House, which provided excuse for deferment of the bill, was far from an impulsive act. On the previous night, the Laloo-Mulayam duo established contacts with a host of OBC and Muslim leaders of the Congress, notably P. Shiv Shanker, deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, to fine-tune a strategy for blocking the bill. Laloo, in particular, cast a magic spell on the OBC members of not only the Congress but of the Samata Party, a BJP ally at the Centre. He called on Samata MP Abdul Ghafoor at his Western Court flat in Delhi, where MPs Prabhunath Singh and Harikewal Prasad were also waiting. Urging them to forget the Samata-RJD rivalry, Laloo spoke of the "grave threat" posed by women's reservation to the "forces of social justice". On the other hand, Mulayam plugged the line of Muslim reservation within the general quota for women. He received enthusiastic response from Muslim MPs of the Congress, such as C.K. Jaffer Sharief and Shakeel Ahmad Khan. "We must stand united against the bill," Mulayam told them.

Laloo and Mulayam have only 37 MPs between them. Their success in getting their way was on account of two factors. First, the pent-up insecurity in the minds of the 192 OBC members of the Lok Sabha (of whom only five are women) that gender reservation would, apart from robbing a third of them of their seats, also put their communities at a political disadvantage. After all, there is little doubt that the more articulate and self-assured women are from the upper castes. They would be the beneficiaries in the initial years of women's reservation. Second, this fear could be transferred to others by painting them as "anti-OBC" and "anti-Muslim". In an electorate with an estimated 27 per cent OBC and 12 per cent Muslim votes, it was an elemental fear.

Congress Conundrum
Rajiv Gandhi's dream turns into a nightmare as the party dithers

On July 12 at Jaipur, Congress President Sonia Gandhi described the Women's Reservation Bill as her late husband's "dream" and said the party would support it "without any change". Two days later, emerging from a stormy session of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP), she had a shorter comment to make: "We shall support the bill."

In the 48 hours that broke the party's resolve to support a cause that Rajiv Gandhi had held close to his heart, the leading players were only a handful: Shiv Shanker, newly-appointed Congress Working Committee (CWC) members Rajesh Pilot and P.A. Sangma, party Chief Whip P.J. Kurien, Sharief and P.M. Sayeed. None of them is an organisational heavyweight. On the other hand, Leader of the Opposition Sharad Pawar, perhaps the most resourceful of the lot, was till the last moment in favour of the bill being passed without any modification. His problem was that party MPs had already begun responding to the overtures of Laloo and Mulayam even before the Government attempted to introduce the bill. Hours before Surendra Yadav tore up the bill, Congress MPs were seen forming admiring groups in the Parliament building around such fire-spewing campaigners against women's reservation as former prime ministers Chandra Shekhar and Deve Gowda, Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, Laloo and Mulayam.

That the party president too had succumbed to the fear of alienating large sections of voters was evident at the CPP meeting on Tuesday morning, where Sonia advised partymen to "speak frankly". What stumped her totally was that the hand-picked speakers spoke against the bill. Leading counsel and Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal, elected from Bihar with residual RJD votes, doubted the constitutionality of even the 73rd and 74th amendment of 1993, which reserved one-third of municipal and panchayat seats for women. The bill in its present form was opposed, apart from Shiv Shanker and Kurien, by Rajo Singh, elected to the Lok Sabha, thanks to the party's seat adjustment with RJD. Though the CPP did not pass a resolution, the meeting was a turning point. Soon afterwards, Pawar was with other political leaders at the Speaker's chamber to discuss two issues: punishment for RJD trouble-makers Surendra Yadav and Mehta, and the decision on the bill's introduction. On the punishment issue, he was a picture of leniency, saying an apology would be enough. On placing the bill, he first asked for a grace period of two days but then agreed to defer it "for the time being".

By then, Pilot and Shiv Shanker had met Vajpayee in an "informal capacity" and urged him not to go ahead with the bill. But Pawar's capitulation finally convinced the Government that the passage of the bill would remain elusive. It was borne out by the CWC resolution a day later, meekly saying that the party would "strive for a consensus" on the issue of OBC sub-quota. That drove the last nail into the coffin of Rajiv's commitment to gender reservation, not to speak of the party's promise in its election manifesto. The Government's initial decision to introduce the bill this session was premised on the Congress extending support. When Sonia retreated in the face of a rank and file revolt, the bill was as good as lost. It will now take Sonia's whip to bring the Congress MPs back in line.

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