After years on the back-burner, the Women's Reservation Bill was finally tabled in the Rajya Sabha on International Women's Day and passed on March 9, but not before several MPs reduced the proceedings of the house to a mere joke with their antics. The Hindu in an editorial on March 10 called it a "historic vote", saying that "there is hardly any example of such a bold and progressive measure to improve the representation of women anywhere in the world, least of all in a society plagued by pervasive gender inequality, discrimination, and violence". The editorial credited Congress president Sonia Gandhi for the decision to go for the vote despite threats from allies that they would withdraw support, while acknowledging the role played by the other two major parties, the BJP and the Left. The Hindu predicts that "equilibrium will quickly return to existing alliances and arrangements as parties turn their attention to managing the mechanics of seat allocation under the new dispensation" , recommending that the UPA "move quickly to win the Lok Sabha's approval for the women's bill" , fearing that delays would only strengthen the obstructionists.
The Hindustan Times, in a March 9 editorial, looks ahead to the implementation of the 108th constitutional amendment. In HT's opinion, "the devil will lie in the many details" . The editorial points out that the panchayati raj reservation experiment proves that women leaders "pay more attention to issues of healthcare, education and other social development issues than their male counterparts" , thus creating expecation that central reservation will lead to an increased focus on these issues. But, cautions the edit, "the passage of the Bill should not mean that it will be left solely to the women who come into Parliament to ensure that social issues are taken up. Good governance is not gender-specific".
Writing in the Indian Express on March 9, however, Pratap Bhanu Mehta expressed some concerns. "While the bill's normative intent is laudable, there is reason to be a trifle disappointed over the short shrift serious constitutional and institutional issues have got in the debates". He outlines institutional issues he believes have not received political articulation. Mehta asserts that "India's electoral system is now becoming an incoherent patchwork of contradictory principles" where a first-pastthe-post system is being used to yield proportional outcomes. He recommends that "if we genuinely believe that proportional representation based on ascriptive characteristics like caste and gender are the litmus tests of political legitimacy, then it would have been wiser to state it explicitly and design an electoral system...accordingly". While he concedes that affirmative action is often necessary in a democracy, he argues that Indian politics "has been dangerously close to enshrining other normative propositions that are dangerous for democracy". On the other hand, T K Arun in the Economic Times on March 11 dismisses criticism of the bill as "specious", but agrees that a move to proportional representation would change the electoral system for the better by "eschew[ing] extremist politics [and] produc[ing] more engagement with the electorate".
The Hindustan Times, in a March 9 editorial, looks ahead to the implementation of the 108th constitutional amendment. In HT's opinion, "the devil will lie in the many details" . The editorial points out that the panchayati raj reservation experiment proves that women leaders "pay more attention to issues of healthcare, education and other social development issues than their male counterparts" , thus creating expecation that central reservation will lead to an increased focus on these issues. But, cautions the edit, "the passage of the Bill should not mean that it will be left solely to the women who come into Parliament to ensure that social issues are taken up. Good governance is not gender-specific".
Writing in the Indian Express on March 9, however, Pratap Bhanu Mehta expressed some concerns. "While the bill's normative intent is laudable, there is reason to be a trifle disappointed over the short shrift serious constitutional and institutional issues have got in the debates". He outlines institutional issues he believes have not received political articulation. Mehta asserts that "India's electoral system is now becoming an incoherent patchwork of contradictory principles" where a first-pastthe-post system is being used to yield proportional outcomes. He recommends that "if we genuinely believe that proportional representation based on ascriptive characteristics like caste and gender are the litmus tests of political legitimacy, then it would have been wiser to state it explicitly and design an electoral system...accordingly". While he concedes that affirmative action is often necessary in a democracy, he argues that Indian politics "has been dangerously close to enshrining other normative propositions that are dangerous for democracy". On the other hand, T K Arun in the Economic Times on March 11 dismisses criticism of the bill as "specious", but agrees that a move to proportional representation would change the electoral system for the better by "eschew[ing] extremist politics [and] produc[ing] more engagement with the electorate".
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