 "Women in Indian Politics: A story that has changed little over the years")
India recently concluded its 2024 general elections, which took place in seven phases—from April 19 to June 1—to elect all 543 members of the Lok Sabha (lower house). While the results have taken many by surprise, what has been even more astonishing is the fact that for a country that has rigorously been trying to establish a more progressive front on women’s rights and gender equality over the past few years, the new Indian parliament has failed to showcase a notable uptick in the representation of women after the latest elections.
Making just 13.63 per cent of the elected strength, the 18th Lok Sabha will comprise only 74 women compared to 469 men. This share is not only abysmally skewed but also lower than the 14.4 per cent share of female representation during the 2019 election, where 78 women were elected as MPs.
The irony here is that just last year, India—during its G20 presidency—brought about a paradigm shift in gender-based policymaking by challenging the status quo and with the innovative idea of women-led development in order to ensure women’s inclusion and representation at all levels of decision-making.
Even at the domestic level, India—after many deliberations—finally passed the historic Women’s Reservation Bill in 2023, which seeks to reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies for women.
While it is true that the bill has not yet come into effect, the journey from 13.63 per cent to 33 per cent (for the next elections) still seems rather long, especially given that, despite being the central agents of the 2024 elections and forming an important core of party manifestos as well as campaign speeches, only a handful of them were able to achieve the final victory.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIt is, however, important to note here that the gender gap in elected representatives—in a lot of ways—begins with the disparity among candidates. In the run-up to the 2024 polls, out of the total 8,337 candidates who filed their nominations, only 797 were women. And even though the total number of female candidates has increased by 10 per cent from 720 in 2019, their share among total candidates has climbed marginally from 9 per cent in 2019 to 9.5 per cent in 2024.
It would perhaps be fair to state that despite the rising number of female candidates over the past several years, the corresponding increase in the number of winners has remained modest. For instance, in 1962, 66 women contested elections, with 31 of them winning. This strike rate dipped in the 1971 elections, where there were 86 female candidates but only 21 won. Even decades later, the number is hardly impressive, as conveyed by the numbers stated above.
India’s progress vis-à-vis women’s representation in leadership positions has therefore remained rather slow and rarely linear, often pushing them to the margins of politics. And while, prior to the 2024 general elections, India’s ranking for women’s representation in the lower house of the Parliament—at the global stage—stood at 143 out of 185 countries as per the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Parline database, falling behind countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, China, and Pakistan, given the recent dip in the number of women’s representation in the new Indian parliament, this ranking is likely to fall further.
The problem here is not just in the numbers; the core also lies in the preconditioned gender norms and patriarchal notions that continue to bind Indian political institutions. A closer look at female representation has time and again revealed that the path on which these women end up walking—as candidates or as MPs—is definitely not an easy one. In fact, the challenges they are confronted with are many. From discriminatory practices to misogynist-sexist remarks and constant jibes from their peers to being submissive towards party decisions, these women have seen it all.
Highlighting the very existence of an oppressive gender hierarchy in politics and a patriarchal attitude that politics is a profession for ‘men’, in 2022, BJP leader Chandrakant Patil told Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Supriya Sule to “ go home and cook” instead of being in politics. Similarly, during the recent elections, the election commission of India censured MP Dilip Ghosh (BJP) and Congress’s Supriya Shrinate for their respective derogatory remarks against West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut.
The need of the hour thus demands a sociological transformation, which forces a breakaway from the past. After all, if India wants to fulfill its great power ambition, establish itself as a major power, and have a greater say at the global stage, it cannot afford to leave out half of its population, nor can it continue rolling out symbolic gender policies that, in reality, carry little to no weight. India—which has set an excellent example in terms of women’s political participation at the local level—must bring out more women representatives at the state as well as the national level.
The writer is a Visiting Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation. Some of her works have appeared in South China Morning Post, The Hindu, Firstpost, Hindustan Times, The Diplomat, The Toronto Star, among several others. She tweets at @akankshakhullar. Views are personal.
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