Women’s Reservation Bill In India Designates 33% of National and State Legislatures for Women
The Women’s Reservation Bill, introduced in 1996, was passed in India’s upper house of parliament last Wednesday, March 10, 2010. That was the first of four steps the bill must go through, and it needs the ceremonial president’s signature. The NYTimes reports today on the Uproar in India Over Female Lawmaker Quota:
The upper house of India’s Parliament passed a bill Tuesday that would amend the Constitution to reserve one-third of the seats in India’s national and state legislatures for women, after the measure stirred two days of political chaos that could whittle the governing coalition’s majority to a dangerously thin margin.
The vote, which is an early step in the process of amending the Constitution, brought pandemonium to Parliament, as a small group of regional caste-based parties waged a fierce fight to block it, arguing that it would diminish their influence. [...]
The amendment is a long-sought tool to improve the lot of women in India, the world’s most populous democracy. Despite having had several formidable female leaders — including former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi, the current leader of the Congress Party — Indian women lag behind men in virtually every sphere of life.
To underscore the magnitude of the Indian intention I pose this thought experiment. Imagine a similar amendment to redress past wrongs here in the U.S.:
The amendment is a long-sought tool to improve the lot of African Americans in the United States, the world’s strongest and most stable democracy. Despite having had several formidable African American leaders — including President Barack Obama and the mayors of Newark, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. — blacks lag behind whites in virtually every sphere of life.
Discuss…
LATER: @timoreilly corrects my math, “Women are 51% of our population. Blacks are 10%. An equivalent would be setting aside 6-7% of seats.”
6 Responses to “Women’s Reservation Bill In India Designates 33% of National and State Legislatures for Women”
How the heck would that be enforced? Do you kick a guy out of parliament and force the electorate to vote for a woman if the numbers are wrong?
Careful. You'll give the more totalitarian-minded PC-devotee fans of Lani Guinier something to think of here.
(It's not even appropriate to do something like that in non-legislative areas of government, like Congress's house rules.)
Uh oh, I'm in trouble now… Would it surprise you to learn that I am a fan of Lani Guinier?
No surprise, Joe W.
I'm a fan of real proportional representation (of parties in multi-seat governing bodies), if it helps.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm
(and approval voting)
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvot…
If you're a Guinier fan, is it for her activism on securing decent representation?
Correcting this isn't the same as the sentiment that gave her the reputation of being the Quota Queen.
http://archive.fairvote.org/reports/1993/hertzb…
Note that her defenders aren't exactly…plain vanilla apolitical types. [ahem]
http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/guinier…
It should be equality of opportunity, not results.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR19.3/tushnet.html
For her thoughtful exploration of alternative voting systems.
I agree on equality of opportunity, not results. But how one defines “opportunity” is tricky, too. Obama's kids (or Tiger Woods') are going to have opportunities I never had.
BTW & so you know, I keep all your links in Evernote to have as a resource, even if I don't get to click through every one every time. They're much appreciated!
“I keep all your links in Evernote to have as a resource”
I'm flattered. Thanks.
I do find the time to do something other than just Strike Back (or just bark) on this political forum.
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“But how one defines 'opportunity' is tricky, too.”
Actually, I lean rightward but I've sought some quite democratic things in addition to proportional representation that would of themselves be quite lefty (pro-democracy). For example, one solution I have to the incumbency problem and to more effective representation is to have random selection, “jury duty” or “the draft,” one individual from each of a set of grouped contiguous Census districts or ZIP code areas. (This is also, incidentally, a way easily to achieve redistricting for Congress. Use Census districts or ZIP codes as well as natural and political boundaries of other kinds.) Random assignment to the House of Representatives would be very Athenian.
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Also, if you're a contemporary-lefty “localism” person, local food, local industry, etc. (even if you, like other lefties, have that big centralizing and consolidating streak and want a big, powerful federal government) you might find this of interest. We can think of five (not three) “levels” of government in a typical hierarchy here in the USA, and this guy got the top and bottom in his political work of note.
Federal (national) *****************
Regional
State
Local (county, district, zone)
Neighborhood ********************
“He had a extremely accurate insight as to where society was headed and what direction it should take.”
“The author applies an engineer's mentality to carefully laying out a detailed design for a bioregional utopia.”
Heyy, mann:
http://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Monkey-Wrench-John…