The noticeable increase in the number of women voters in state and Lok Sabha elections over the past decade is a significant shift in behaviour. By declaring this change to be a manifestation of nari shakti, or women’s power, political parties have conveniently appropriated the credit for empowering women without really having done much except following the rules and implementing targeted schemes.
Women, as an undifferentiated mass, are in focus as the campaign takes off for the Lok Sabha elections. Their value and role are measurable in ways that reflect the intensity of the competition in which the BJP has pitted itself against its previous tally—with slogans such as ‘Abki baar 400 paar’ for the NDA—and against the disunited opposition of the Congress, regional parties and other smaller players. The entry and exit of these parties from the INDIA bloc makes their role ambiguous—sometimes a challenger, at other times a defender—because their roles vary across states.
In the run-up to the election season, from Narendra Modi to Mamata Banerjee, from Rahul Gandhi to Yogi Adityanath, women are now a significant component of the stock speech. The competition to attract women voters has intensified since 2019. The reason is the obviously increased visibility of women and their preference for parties that guarantee targeted benefits. In 2019, there was a 5.1 percent increase in women voters. In the state elections since then, their participation has increased.
There is, however, no evidence that political parties have nominated more women as candidates in state and assembly elections to keep pace with the change. Barring the Trinamool Congress, which fielded women in 40 percent of the seats in 2019 and less than 40 percent in the 2021 state elections, most political parties continue to believe women are less likely to win.
BJP’s first list of candidates confirms the bias. Of the 155 candidates announced, just about 18 percent are women. In the Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan assembly elections, the number of women given tickets was nowhere near one-third.
The persistence of bias shows in the 33 percent seats reserved in the Women’s Reservation Act 2023. Reservation for women in Panchayati Raj institutions has been pegged at 50 percent since 2009. Why then did the political class decide that a 33 percent reservation was enough in state assemblies and the Lok Sabha?
Women’s participation, as elected representatives of Panchayati Raj institutions, reflects the reality of where they stand within the three-tier structure of governance. Power has not changed the gender dynamics in how panchayats are managed. The official recognition of ‘panchayat pati’ is an abomination that deliberately snatches away the power of the woman panchayat pradhan. A recent Union government circular to states with instructions for the inclusion of husbands/male family members of women panchayat pradhans nails the lie.
In the scramble to take credit for more women voters and create loyalty programmes through targeted schemes, the questions that need answering are why more women trek to polling booths and what they expect by doing so. Political parties routinely answer the questions on behalf of women, which is just another way of invisibilising women and robbing them of rationality and agency. Most political leaders don’t stop to wonder if the ways in which they talk about women is not offensively patronising.
The most publicised schemes are designed around the woman as a mother, caregiver or cook (subsidised cooking gas under the Ujjwala Yojana), or needy and defenceless (Ladli Behena or Lakshmir Bhandar). Girls are given support for education. But on jobs and the infrastructure required for women to access jobs, there is a deafening silence. In Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the BJP has promised women’s quotas in government jobs, including the police. To imagine that this is all that women can want is the limitation that the political class, in the grip of patriarchy, refuses to acknowledge.
The bartering of votes for benefits indicates that women are aware of the power they possess during and in between elections. They seem to have used it in the recent elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The party that offered more received a small but important boost in votes. In 32 segments in Madhya Pradesh, more women voted than men. In Chhattisgarh, almost the same number of men and women voted. In Mizoram, more women voted than men. Mamata Banerjee has, since before coming to power in 2011, nurtured women as a vote bank and that remains her most dependable support.
It is clear that women voters will be a significant part of the 2024 campaign, regardless of how few are considered winnable candidates. The recent Sandeshkhali incident in West Bengal is illustrative of the new enthusiasm for championing women, their insecurities and safety. Trinamool strongman Shahjahan Sheikh and his henchmen, now in custody, were accused of sexual violence, exploitation and rape. As the principal opposition party, the BJP swung into action putting the Trinamool, specifically Banerjee, on the defensive.
Sandeshkhali is set to become the trope for the ferociously competitive campaign in 2024, just as women’s safety became the trope of the 2018 campaign in Uttar Pradesh, when the BJP charged the Samajwadi Party of running a goonda raj.
Will all women in Sandeshkhali and across West Bengal vote for the opposition? Will women be the BJP’s vote bank versus the Muslims, who have been a vote bank for Banerjee? The emerging narrative converts individual women into a consolidated mass.
Women’s election choices are not swayed by sentiment. Women are rational. Like all voters, women’s opinion and vote may or may not coincide. To imagine that women are happy with bigger handouts and free foodgrains is to believe that they have no aspirations outside the domestic space. The fact that women keep dropping out of the labour force because the work they find is not good enough is an indicator that there is suppression of demand and expectations.
The Lok Sabha election is not going to address these issues. Instead, keeping winnability in focus, parties including the BJP will settle for more men as candidates, distorting the way in which representation works.
Shikha Mukerjee
Senior journalist
(Views are personal)