Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam: Will vs Act

Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam 2023 was passed by both the houses of parliament on September 21, 2023. Here are some important points related to the act.

1. The acts provide reservation only in Lok Sabha and Legislative assemblies not in Rajya Sabha and Legislative council.
2. The acts also provide sub reservation to women belonging to SC, ST and Anglo Indian among women candidates.
3. One-third seats will be reserved for women within SC and ST’s in Lok Sabha and all Legislative assemblies.
4. The act will last only for 15 years and can be extended by parliament.
5. The act will be implemented after census and delimitation exercise, which is expected to complete by 2029.

The bill was supported by all the parties and all the members in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The big that arises here is when all the parties believe that women’s must have proper representation in parliament, why the political parties did not provided the reservation for women during elections? This clearly shows that all the parties in parliament supported women reservation bill just for elections, if all the parties would have provided for internal reservation at party level women’s would have got due representation long back and even though the law prescribes for quota after census political parties in their own interest could have announced for quota in 2024 election. The implementation after delimitation is seen as a safeguard for present male member of the parliament, the new seats that will be added to parliament after delimitation will be reserved for providing reservation to women. But today we will talk about those country that has highest representation of women in parliament without any law.

The case of Sweden

Sweden is located in Northern Europe on the Scandinavian Peninsula. It is bordered by Norway to the west and north, Finland to the east. Sweden is a developed country and what makes it different is that it has 47% of women representation in politics without any law prescribing for it. This has been made possible by the political will of the political parties in Sweden. Almost all the parties provide 40-50% of reservation at the party level for women and this simple practice has changed the entire political picture of Sweden. India needs to learn from the experience of Sweden and each party must provide internal reservation to women so that women reservation can be implemented from 2024 onwards without extending it to 2029 general elections.