Commentary / Mani Shankar Aiyar
We need women in our democracy because we need democracy
The argument against reservations for women cannot, therefore,
in India, at any rate, start from first principles. So long as
we are ready to envisage reservations as one way of tackling injustice,
we cannot deny, in principle, its usefulness in tackling other
forms of injustice. Women are denied their place in our polity
because legislatures have in effect been reserved overwhelmingly
for women. The legislation on the anvil rectifies the reservations,
rather than creates a new category of reservations.
The other argument against reservations is that it militates against
merit. Women, goes this argument, who are not fit to be legislators
are being unnecessarily - and even unwillingly - imposed on the
system. The argument would be unimpeachable if merit were indeed
what characterised the elected male legislators, or even a substantial
portion of them.
With the kind of disillusionment with democracy
that has overtaken our democracy, the suggestion that the best and brightest
are the ones who win
Indian elections would be laughable if it were not downright insulting.
A democracy which routinely throws up the Taslimuddins and Pappu
Yadavs, and hundreds of men of lesser vices but no greater virtue,
cannot be defended on the grounds of being a meritocracy. Our
democracy is not a meritocracy. No democracy is. Surely you would
not wish to suggest that Bill Clinton is the finest specimen of American malehood going - although,
arguably, Hillary could qualify as among the best of American
women!
Indeed, if a democracy were to degenerate into a meritocracy (I
use the word degenerate' advisedly), democracy would cease to
be representative of society - and, therefore, cease to be democracy.
This was self evident to my generation brought up on Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World. I doubt that anyone at St Stephen's today reads
Huxley any more. There is, therefore reason to stress that a meritocracy,
at best, can give you a kind of Platonic Utopia of rule by philosopher-kings;
it would not take long before such a plutocracy of talent transformed
itself into a tyranny of the Few Endowed over the Mass of the
Unendowed.
I am certain there will be no dilution - if further dilution is
possible - of the quality of our public life in consequence of
a third of the legislative seats being reserved for women; on
the contrary, it seems virtually certain that the initial impact
will be to raise standards, at least until practice teaches the
more deadly of the species to make vice perfect.
Madhu Kishwar seems to have a point when she argues (The Indian
Express, 4.10.96, the immediately provocation for this column):
'Why Feminise Corruption?' On the other hand, would Madhu really
prefer unrepresentative corruption to representative corruption?
Disillusionment with democracy is, alas, curdling even our cream.
We need women in our democracy because we need democracy.
The
argument for ensuring female representation is not that women
are better than men, but that they are no worse. They must be
given equity of opportunity - because they have not secured equity
of opportunity.
|
