When an issue such as advancing the political and other rights of women becomes bogged down in India’s popularly elected Chamber, governments turn to the upper House, ironically the Chamber that was designed to slow down not speed up legislation.
Shri S.N. Sahu in
New Delhi. Shri Sahu was a senior official and Press Secretary to the late President of India, Shri K.R. Narayanan, and served as Director in the Prime Minister’s Office. He is currently Joint Secretary in the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. The views expressed by the author are his personal views.
In 1946 Mahatma Gandhi expressed regret that political parties were not doing enough to send adequate numbers of women to legislative bodies. In response to a question whether it was necessary to have large numbers of women in such bodies, he forcefully said: “I am not
enamoured of equality or any other proportion in such
matters….Seeing, however, that it has been the custom to decry women, the contrary custom should be to prefer women…to men, even if the preference should result in men being entirely displaced by women.…Women, and for that matter any group, should disdain patronage. They should seek justice, never favours….For men to take a lead in this much-needed reform would be
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not a matter of favour but a simple act of belated justice due to women.”
The Constitution Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha The passage of the above Bill in the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) on 9 March 2010 to reserve for women 33 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha (House of People) and state Assemblies represented the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi to work for justice and equality for women. As the 108th amendment to the constitution, it is a mighty step for the emancipation of Indian women and their political empowerment. The motion moved in the Council of States to pass the Bill after so many failed attempts in the
Shri S.N. Sahu
Lok Sabha to make it a law bears significance in the context of the historic role played by the Rajya Sabha in becoming a legislative forum where some of the most far- reaching socio-economic legislation originated. The day it would be enacted it would be hailed as the second most