Wednesday, March 18, 2009

So, who is listening?

Women's groups have put forward a charter on women's concerns to all political parties. First and fore most these groups have urged that women's reservation bill should be passed. Ha...women are clamouring for the this bill for at least a decade now, parties are not even ready to file women candidates, leave alone reserve seats for them. A few days ago there was another report where a BJP minister, who is herself a woman is giving an excuse for not filing woimen candidates "What can we do", she says,"no party is willing to file women candidates", what an excuse! What is the outcome of such charters which are "appeals" to the political parties. No political party attaches the slightest bit of importance to these appeals- these should be demands based upon women's constitutional rights. It would be better if these women's groups develop a cadre of women leaders who can be worthy of getting a ticket. We do not want horrors like Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Jayalalitha, Vasundhara Raje etc they make our insides churn. Can you imagine Mayawati as our prime minister- that will be a good time to immigrate! Is there no learned, sincere , socially conscious and competent dalit woman in our country? Men have made a complete mess of our political system, it is time for them to step back and allow real deserving women to take over, we do not want bizzare creations of males, we want self made and socially conscious women, otherwise no reservation bill can save this country. There are countries where the 33% reservation of seats for women is in effect in the Central legislature. Finland is a case in point, and the country is doing pretty well in every sector and specially in the social sector of the welfare and health of the family. I shudder to think what the outcome of the elections are going to be, but one thing I am sure of- the number of women in the legislature will be as small as ever.

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