The absence of the visibility of women from the mini conclave scheduled in Chennai on March 22, called by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam where political leaders, mostly chief ministers (CMs) from the southern states, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana will put their heads together on a political strategy ahead of the appointment of a Delimitation Commission by an Act of Parliament is injurious to the future of women’s participation in politics and their capacity to represent themselves. The seemingly willful abnegation by women in asserting their presence and participating in the discussions on the process of delimitation, crucial to how many women will be initially elected as representatives of a separate category for empowerment, inclusion and participation is a carry-over from the times when the mostly male dominated political leadership made decisions without consultation.

By not publicly exercising their agency, women in politics are not doing themselves nor the constituency of women voters any favours. The reservation of one third of all elected legislative seats in Parliament and in state assemblies is neither an entitlement nor a privilege; it began as a demand raised by Geeta Mukherjee of the Communist Party of India, which was given substance with the appointment of a Joint Select Committee in 1996. Now that the demand has been fulfilled as a guaranteed quota, that creates the space for women to be more than vote banks, to be wooed through direct cash transfer schemes of the ladli behena (beloved sister) or maiya samman (honour to the mother) kind, it is strange that women are not joining the high table as a group representing themselves as the mini conclave.

The recent controversy kicked off by CM M K Stalin on the probable impact of a fresh delimitation exercise would mean a reduction in the relative proportion of seats for states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and even Odisha is based on an apprehension that slower rate of population growth would end up as a penalty instead of a reward compared to states where population growth has not slowed as the same speed. In effect, the worry is, if the delimitation exercise involves a big jump in the total number of seats in the Lok Sabha, then states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan would be disproportionately benefited with more seats.

Doing the complex maths of population size to number of representatives based on the number of voters in one constituency is difficult enough, since the basic principle that has been adopted since 1951-52 is one vote equals one value across all constituencies, barring the states in the North East, where population was, historically, low. The new delimitation exercise that comes into effect after 2026, as per the 84th Constitutional Amendment and the census that must precede the exercise of redrawing polling constituencies, is not the same as the past four delimitation processes.

Not only must the forthcoming delimitation exercise consider increasing the total number of elected seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, it must also work out which constituencies would be reserved for women for the first time. The delimitation exercise would have to take into account the issue of women’s reservation for the existing Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes seats as well. The 106th Constitutional Amendment specifies that reservation for women will end in 15 years from the time it is put in place and elections are held. Since the reservation of constituencies for women would be on a rational basis, the first round is not only historically important, it is politically significant.

Assertion rather than playing the role of “passive dependents” as an “adaptive preference,” a point that philosopher Martha Nussbaum made about how women make their choices, is not a strategy that women in politics ought to pursue, given the responsibility they have to take on as being the first ever cohort that will be elected on the basis of reservation of seats. For too long, women in power as elected representatives at the panchayat level have offset their privileges by allowing spouses to function as proxies, creating a category that is now sort of official – panchayat pati, (panchayat husband, a stand in for the woman).

Too often women have allowed their role as part of the power structure to be usurped by the men in their families. In West Bengal where the Trinamool Congress is an outlier as a political party that has 37.9% women as Members of Parliament (MPs) out of a total tally of 29 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the practice of men taking over the role of elected women leaders is about the same as it is in the socially and culturally more backward states in North India.

If, as experts estimate, the size of the Lok Sabha could increase to about 848 seats then political parties would have to find 279 women to fill the reserved quota. Given that in the current 18th Lok Sabha, there are only 74 women MPs down from 78 women in the 17th Lok Sabha, the exercise of choosing winnable candidates for every party is going to be a seriously difficult challenge. Since any increase in the number of constituencies post delimitation would impact state assemblies, the challenge of selecting women as leaders becomes even tougher.

The absence and near silence of women at the table where delimitation, politics and representation will be discussed is problematic. India has a poor track record of women’s participation in the work force, ranking at 129 out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index of 2024. The onus of bringing in women to fulfill their responsibilities as representatives with agency is with the political parties. Adjustments in the existing organisational systems to deal with the changed reality are necessary but the indications from the mini conclave of opposition parties on delimitation are not positive for women’s inclusion in decision-making.

This article is authored by Shikha Mukerjee, senior journalist, Kolkata.