Women have been breaking the glass ceiling of patriarchy in every sector in India, however, they are still to get equal space in the political ‘akhada’.
A case in point: Karnataka’s Bengaluru, which boasts of being cosmopolitan, taking big strides in the fields of development, innovation and empowerment. However, in the past 66 years, the capital city has elected only seven women MLAs to the magnificent Vidhan Soudha or the Legislative Assembly, of which three were elected to the erstwhile Mysore Legislative Assembly in 1957.
Of the 225 seats in the 14th Karnataka Legislative Assembly, there are just 10 elected women and one nominated. This is just 4 per cent of the total strength in the Vidhan Sabha. In the 2018 elections, according to the Election Commission, 72.77 per cent of male voters and 71.08 per cent of women voters across 222 constituencies came out to vote in the single-phase polling. The total voter turnout in the state was 72.13 per cent.
Karnataka goes to polls on May 10. Bengaluru accounts for one-eighth of the seats in the Karnataka Assembly and has, until 2018, elected a total of 203 legislators. The seven women who were elected from the capital city were Nagarathnamma Hiremath, Lakshmidevi Ramanna, Grace Tucker, all three were elected twice; Pramila Nesargi, S Hemavathi, Shobha Karandlaje and Sowmya Reddy, sitting Jayanagar Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA).
This shows that less than 5% elected from Bengaluru in the past 66 years have been women. Further analysis of the data indicates that of the total 14 elections that have been fought since 1957, women were voted in only in 1978, 1994, 2008 and 2018. Most of the women who threw their hat in the electoral ring in Karnataka were either from smaller parties such as the All India Mahila Empowerment Party or contested as independents.
‘PIONEER’ LAGGING BEHIND
Of the 10 women MLAs, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has three — Shashikala Jolle (Nippani), Roopal Naik (Karwar), K Poornima (Hiriyur), while the Congress has six — Laxmi Hebbalkar (Belgavi Rural), Anjali Nimbalkar (Khanapur), Kaneez Fathima (Gulbarga Uttar), Kusuma Shivalli (Kundgol), Roopkala Shashidhar (KGF) and Sowmya Reddy (Jayanagar). The Janata Dal S (JDS) has just one MLA, who is also the wife of former CM H D Kumaraswamy, Anitha. Vinisha Elizabeth Nero is the only other MLA based in the city, apart from Sowmya Reddy, but she is nominated, not elected.
This time around, the BJP and Congress have given nine tickets to women candidates and the JDS 13.
This abysmal representation of women stands as a sore point as Karnataka pioneered as the state to introduce reservation for women in elected bodies in the 1980s, a decision taken almost a decade earlier than the Union government. Then Karnataka chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde and Abdul Nazir Saab, then Rural Development Minister, brought about the legislation which reserved 25 seats for women in the Panchayati Raj system.
In the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution (1992), it was mandated to reserve one-third of seats reserved for women across the country.
In April this year, former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider passing the Women’s Reservation Bill, which seeks one-third reservation for women in state assemblies. He also stressed that it would be important to do so before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
WOMENSPEAK
News18 spoke to women legislators in Karnataka across parties, who, despite their different political ideologies, speak in one voice to end the misogyny and patriarchal thinking, especially in candidate selection.
“There is something wrong with the entire system. The mindset of society, forget the men, society itself is against women. They do not want us to win. Be it intellectually, creatively or management, women are superior in all respects. The major reason why political parties are afraid is that women may win and men may have to seek reservation if a lot of women are in the fray,” said two-time BJP MLA Pramila Nesargi from Bengaluru.
Bengaluru city’s sitting MLA Sowmya Reddy said a woman MLA has to fight a tough battle in a male-dominated society, while ensuring her work is done efficiently. Reddy rued the fact the women’s reservation bill was in cold storage.
“There is a reservation at the zilla parishad, gram panchayat levels. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) makes me very happy because there are 102 women corporators across 198 BBMP wards. That is because of the reservation that Mr Rajiv Gandhi had introduced. The present central BJP government refuses to pass the women’s reservation bill. Despite being tabled 26 years ago and passed in the Rajya sabha, the bill remains to be passed in the Lok Sabha,” she said.
“Women are seen as emotional and not as thick-skinned as men. Why should we be the choice only after our father or husband? We are strong-willed, extremely organized and shrewd, and can balance home and work. Why is there a lack of trust? It is only because the patriarchal attitude still exists that women belong in homes and kitchens, not constituencies and political party offices. We need to go the extra mile to show that we are more than capable,” said an incumbent Karnataka BJP MLA. She will be contesting again in the 2023 assembly polls.
News18 also spoke to another Bengaluru city MLA N A Haris, who represents the Shantinagar constituency, and said that political parties should give more representation to women and “train women and make them capable”.
“Politics is not easy. There are a lot of issues that they need to be groomed for,” he said.
He also pointed out that women should be able to sustain themselves for a long fight in politics.
“Women are not alone, we are with them. We need to train women for the big fight. Only the Congress can ensure a woman PM or woman CM in the country. More power to them,” he said.
The highest number of women MLAs in Karnataka was in 1962 when 18 were elected, but there has been a decline since.
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