Reservation is a common term which I always perceive to be in Railway Stations, sometimes in college seat and job allocations. There is always a fee to pay for it in modern day world, be it the 20 rupees which you pay for your berth reservation in the train or the pressure which the petty parties force on the ruling giants in lieu of saving their throne.
So, that takes us to a tricky question.
Where does this reservation come from? As stated by great political orators, we need reservation to ensure that we get EQUAL SOCIAL, ECONOMICAL OPPORTUNITIES for all sects of the society who were oppressed or deemed to be oppressed for a long time by the so called upper caste folks.
What do women want in Indian society? With one sect of the women ruling the country directly or indirectly (which is not our concern anyways), one cult ruling the BPO and the Information Technology world, some flying ministers and some plunging to space, it is really funny that regional politicians speak about leaving the left side of the bus for women to sit and there is a conductor who is deemed to do moral policing here. With that constituting to a logical 50% of bus, when it comes to legislative assemblies and councils, it is sheer generosity that they take the stance at 33%, coz, that is their playground.
There are illiterates who would want to split up folks who are already Ethno cultural, playing biased plot for political gains and nothing more. Women don’t need reservation, they need recognition. For folks who are pessimistic, they could argue that we can give them 33% allocation on war fronts too. Why should men alone suffer the cold, when women suffer the heat here?
To illustrate what is happening, let me tell you a simple story. God created 2 creatures (assume them as some aliens and not humans to ensure that we are not morally oriented to these species) of equal caliber, strength, … One fine day, creature 1 found out a way to oppress creature 2, break his legs, so that he doesn’t walk to his pace/subside to his commands . As it worked out perfectly, he practiced it for a looooong time. After multiple decades, there were some associates of creature 2 who discovered ?!@#$%* that this is oppression. By this time, Emile Berliner has already invented the microphone and Marconi’s radio too was their hot assist. When electricity started flowing through their devices and of course their veins, the scream got intensified. This was happening in a small island and all of a sudden, top notch intellectuals started blaring that the world is running very fast and we want the best athletes to take the country forward. The government had the responsibility of making everyone run or at least move forward. What they did was use a robot (reservation) to pick up the folks whose legs were broke and drop them in the half way mark and order them to move forward. Rest of the folks have to run all the way from the start (They were irritated, but, their metabolism accepted the fact that if they don’t run as fast as they can, they are going to lose) . And what happens if still the crippled are not able to come forward? We airlift and drop them in three-fourth of the distance (increase reservation). What would be a viable solution? Give them Crutches, wheel chairs, fix their leg, ensure that no one breaks their leg in the near future, and so on … (Assistance and Recognition). Now, after a generation, creature 1 and creature 2 will be fully qualified to run the same race.
The shameful fact is, with more than a generation given up their ghost, we deem that we are not in a situation wherein everyone is running on the same track. Airlift and drop literally failed, but, petty parties have gained momentum and quite some control over the rulers. With reservations being a pretty old story, they need fresh blood to bring in their veins and push sympathy and empathy in front of masses expecting electoral mandates. International Women’s day ignited the spark for women’s reservation again which has been watered off in the earlier past by lots of reasons.
Argument is that if there is 33% reservation for women in legislative assemblies all of a sudden, there would be the following concerns.
- There are not enough able women leaders who are working on the sub-legislative levels who can be elevated. We need to have women MLAs and MPs because the government wants them.
- If the existing male MLA/MP gets to know that his constituency is about to go to a women next time because of allocation, he will do nothing to his folks for the rest of his tenure. (Please do not speculate on what folks do now).
- If we speak about this reservation on a rotational basis, pessimistically speaking (at least for the sake of arguing), all newly elected members would be in a scare that their constituency allocation may go for a toss text time, coz, regional parties would decide where to place women and ensure that their top notch guys are always safe and elected. (If nothing works, they can declare that they have won, fake ballots, … which are different stories, not to be discussed here).
- This would discourage the first level of male workers who are aspirant of becoming the next generation leaders. All of a sudden, for the sake of being a female, if someone is made as their leader, their hopes would be scattered. (Optimistically, this is a short term problem for a long term solution, but still, … ).
- There would be regional, religion based parties who would demand caste based allocation within this allocation pool.
- In this patriarchal crowd, what would these new women members do? Say “Yes Sir, Ok Sir” to their party heads commands till they gain experience? More relatives of existing leaders would barge in. Say, if I don’t contest this election, my wife will, if not my son, my daughter, and so on …
As in the time of Bharathiyaar through his eyes, the great tamil poet, women were obsessed, asked to wear only sarees, not allowed to go out of their houses without the assistance of a male, not allowed to speak with males other than father/brother/husband, not allowed to debate, forced to sati (die with your husband, kudos to Raja Ram Mohan Roy who took this custom to ashes). All these are just history and has no relevance to women in India now. It is exactly the opposite of what you see in the previous sentence. (Like “Kolangal” Abi ).
As a tamil comedian Vadivelu used to say “Building Strong, Basement Weak …”. If we go ahead with providing 33% on all our legislative assemblies and councils right away without ensuring that women are not equally rooted in all levels of politics, we will end up in catastrophe. We would end up in Rubberstamp politicians on top. (Enough, we already have many).
Politically, this would be a great success if run through as we have 48.18% women in the country’s total population and their emotions are already kindled. Every party which supports this would claim that "they did it" in their next election propaganda.
Who knows, as some folks change their caste to exploit the existing caste based reservation, if women reservation bill breathes successfully, some people may not be hesitant to get operated to change their gender to utilize this as well … LOL …
