Women's reservation bill restricts freedom of choice for Indian electorate

Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister four times. Gender discrimination failed to prevent Jayalalitha and Vasundara Raje from coming to power in TamilNadu and Rajasthan. A woman from a family with no political background, Mayawati, heads Uttar Pradesh, India's largest, and arguably, most patriarchal state. Delhi has re-elected Shiela Dixit despite her gender. Sonia Maino, bahu of India's "first family", commands loyalty of India's largest political party and its supporters.

Clearly, Indian electorate have already proved their non-discriminatory nature in electing women to positions of power without any form of legislation or coercion. What then, is the pressing need for the women's reservation bill?

The bill reserving one-third of MP and MLA seats for women is a pseudo-progressive bill that will restrict electorate's freedom. In the name of politically empowering women, one-third of the nation will be prevented from electing the candidate they consider most suited to represent them in parliment and state assemblies.

235 million strong electorate, larger than population of Pakistan, cannot vote for men in one election at least. As the bill proposes a round robin system for seat reservation, during 15 years of the bill's life (if not extended), the entire nation will probably have a artificially limited selection of candidates and live with its consequence for 5 years.

In addition to limiting freedom of choice, the bill will degrade democratic mechanisms. Independent women candidates will have little incentive to nurture their constituencies as round-robin method keeps away traditional political big guns for only five years.

Small political parties that bank on charisma of one or two candidates will suffer the most.Only large parties, such Congress and BJP at national level, and DMK, etc at state levels have the resources to rally their electorate irrespective of candidate.

Candidates from smaller parties will be shunted to cold storage when women's quota is applicable to their constituency. Rebuilding their image after 5 years of reduced public visibility is a uphill task. A task in which many of them will fail, from the lack of resources.