Consumed by Political Motivations

The Modi government had no time to get into the more demanding fundamentals concerning the implementation of the legislation

- Omkar Poojari

“THE essential ingredient of politics is timing.” It might not be the best time to quote a Trudeau in India, but these words of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau aptly sum up the Modi government’s sudden and unexpected move of tabling and getting the Women’s Reservation Bill (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023) passed—a legislation which was in cold storage for close to three decades. The passage of the bill—reserving one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies—once again reaffirms that the Modi-led BJP knows the importance of the essential ingredient of politics i.e. timing. It is serving the right dish at the right time to the right audience i.e. the women voters.

Women Vote Differently and Independently

Many observers have pointed out that one of the biggest stories of India’s democracy in recent times has been the steadily rising participation of women voters. Over the last six decades, the turnout of women voters has increased by about 20 percentage points. In fact, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the women’s turnout was marginally higher than the men’s turnout. But to be clear, this does not mean that more women are voting than men. The impact of India’s highly skewed population sex ratio can be clearly seen in the Sex Ratio of Voters (SRV) in India—number of women voters per thousand male voters who actually vote. However, impressive strides have been made on that front too. As demonstrated by Mudit Kapoor and Shamika Ravi, India’s SRV has improved considerably from 793 in the 1970s to 928 in the 2010s.