Tag: general elections

7May

As elections near an end, a look at India’s other half

The horrific New Delhi gang rape of 2012 pushed women’s rights on to the electoral agenda in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections more than ever before. As India gradually begins to wind up its mammoth election exercise, here’s a historic look at the female vote, which is expected to play a significant role in determining the make-up of the new government.

According to the Election Commission of India, the gap between male and female voter turnout has been gradually decreasing since 1962. Female participation in state elections has risen since 2009. The gap could well be set to narrow even further this time around.

Although the official breakdown of voter numbers is yet to be released, the EC disclosed that in Chandigarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim and Lakshadweep there were more votes cast by women than by men.

Of the 20 states that have held elections since the last Lok Sabha polls, 16 recorded a higher voting percentage among women than men.

The EC is also hoping that a programme, which includes the deployment of election officials to voters’ homes to encourage women to vote, will help narrow the gap further, after a national survey found that women were often reluctant to visit a polling station unless accompanied by a man.

These official measures have been accompanied by social media campaigns, such as ‘Power of 49’, that have been active in encouraging women to vote.

The ‘Power of 49’ manifesto cites the underrepresentation of women in Parliament as one of the key concerns of their campaign.

Gender Balance in the Lok Sabha

Lok_Sabha_Gender

After the 2009 election, female members of the lower house rose above 10% for the first time.

In that election, women were actually more electorally successful than men. Women made up 7% of candidates fielded, with 11% of those candidates taking a seat in the Lok Sabha. This compares to a 6% success rate for male candidates.

In every general election since 1980 female hopefuls have recorded a higher success rate than their male counterparts.

Of the 7,562 candidates who submitted themselves to the electorate so far, just 592 (8%) are women. This 1% increase on last year’s figure suggests that change in this area will be gradual rather than sudden.

Even with the tendency for women candidates to be more successful than their male opponents, anything other than a modest rise in female representation looks unlikely.

Whatever the new Parliament looks like, India’s attitude towards women’s rights and violence against women is set to remain a contentious issue.

The conservative BJP, which is poised to do well in the current poll, point to increase in girls’ education and decreases in female infanticide in BJP-governed Madhya Pradesh as evidence of its commitment to women’s rights.

This commitment, however, has been called into question by critics of the BJP who accuse its leader, Narendra Modi, of paying lip service to the issue of women’s rights. Journalist Ankit Panda, who covers Indian politics for the Diplomat magazine, stated, “It seems to me that a majority of BJP members espouse views that are hostile to the liberal notion of gender equality.”

An open letter in The Guardian newspaper signed by Salman Rushdie, among others, has also drawn attention to the BJP’s record in this regard. Urging electors to “remember the role played by the Modi government in the horrifying events that took place in Gujarat in 2002,” the letter states “Women, in particular, were subjected to brutal acts of violence and were left largely unprotected by the security forces.”

15Apr

Women are the almost forgotten sex in Haryana

A woman in a Haryana village. Photo: Vikas Lather

“Politicians only address men. We, the women of this village, are mostly told by our husbands which symbol to vote for. We don’t think, we just go and vote.”
Nirmala Devi (not in the photograph above), in Sarhera village, Haryana

In 1996, the late Congress politician Bansi Lal won the state assembly election and became chief minister with a single-point agenda — prohibition. It was the first and only time women voters took central position in India’s ‘khapland’, the councils that decide on pretty much all aspects of the community, including the personal lives of its members. The idea of a ban on alcohol sale and consumption captured their imagination. (In 1998, however, the government had to lift the ban because of the political and economic fallout.)

The Aam Aadmi Party, the new party of anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal,  is promising similar reforms in the general election currently underway to woo women whose first wish is that their husbands and sons should not become drunkards. Other parties in the region have not shown much energy to push for women rights.

Women in Haryana have been so marginalised and discriminated against that most remain economically weak, educationally backward, socially depressed and politically disabled. Many are slave to poverty, unemployment and financial crisis.

According to data compiled by the Census of India in 2011, Haryana has the lowest sex ratio among all states of the Indian Union, with a shocking rural female literacy rate of just 60.02 per cent. The National Crime Records Bureau says that in 2011 Haryana had a conviction rate of only 23.4 per cent in rape cases; molestation, domestic violence, and other woman-related crimes increased.

So how deep-rooted is the apathy towards women’s issues in Haryana? Surjeet Singh, a former principal of the government school for girls at village Bobua says, “In Haryana, statistics related to honour killing do not come up; there is no way you can measure [this crime] as most incidents are not reported owing to social pressure. Marriage or love affairs outside one’s caste are, in some cases, punished with death.”

Singh recalls reading a newspaper report by well-known British journalist Robert Fisk on an acid attack, a product of the victim’s decision to marry outside her caste. “It said the acid fused her lips, burned her hair, melted her breasts and an ear, and turned her face into a look of ‘molten rubber’. This is humiliating. It makes us a prisoner of the shame, and responsible for it as it is happening in modern India,” he said.

The future of women in rural areas depends on how well they understand the need to vote for the right candidate. Nirmala Devi, who is quoted at the beginning of this report, remembers how her vote helped bring about the change she desperately wanted. This time she has made up her mind whom to vote for without consulting her husband. Sadly she remains a tiny minority.

Main image: A woman in a Haryana village. Photo: Vikas Lather 

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