Role of Women in the Government Formation of India - Research Paper Example

The List of Contents Executive summary………………………………………………………………………..4 The Terms of Reference………………………………………………………...…4 Introduction India: the State…………………………………………………………………….7 The statistics of India……………………………………………………………..8 Difference in men and women standings: The Underdevelopment………………8 Governmental structure of India and the politics: The British lines…………….11 The modern Indian states political structure…………………………………….12 Women in politics and administration Political participation of the Indian women: the under development…………..12 Women voters and the women contestants……………………………………..14 Changes in the Constitutional Amendments…………………………………….15 Women constraints to participate………………………………………………17 Strategies to fight the under development: Remedies………………………….18 Local governments and the Women Participation Laws promoting the women participation…………………………………….19 The changes in the Legislation The initiatives taken by the civil society………………………………………..19 Obstacles to the remedies………………………………………………………………20 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………….22 Recommendations and Analysis………………………………………………………..23 Appendices………………………………………………………………………………..24 References………………………………………………………………………………..25 Executive summary The education is the basic sign that represents the level of the development of any country. We see that the there is a great difference in the education level of the women and the men. This creates a complex in the women that they are somehow inferior to the men and gives the men mire space to occupy better positions in the state and have more powers. The report deals with the situation of women in India when it comes to taking the places in the political level for the government level. The awareness of the Indian women in the case of the organizational issues is very less which is because of the lesser education. There are many organizations that in the present time are dealing with the increase in the women awareness to take part in the politics. The women of India are under the inferiority complex that they are inferior to the men because the men are greatly educated and have more powers than women. The changes that are needed include the amendments that have been made in the Indian constitution. The amendments say that the seats shall be reserved for the women however it is not being implemented in the practical manner. The women participation should be increased in the political governance. The Terms of Reference India is the country which in the modern days is showing all the signs of the modernism and the liberalism. The industries that the state has contribute to the greater extent to the economy of the sate. However if we go deeper and deeper we see that the problems that the state has are deep rooted and the problems have to be solved as soon as they can be. The report will discuss the main reasons of the failure of the Indian women to make there space in the political scenario. The reasons would be specific enough as far as the failure of the women in the political scenario is concerned. The changes that are being made in the political scenario so that the participation of women in the parliament is increased will be discussed. In addition it will be seen that what are the scopes of the changes and what do the strategies offer. The changes that are being offered, it will be seen that are they being implemented to make sure that the changes that are required for the women are being made or not. The report will not go into the depth of the governments analysis of the political scenario and the political makeup of the Indian governments. Therefore the report will be restricted to the importance of the women in the political scenario in the state if India and how the changes can be made in that case. The specific areas to discussed inn this report specifically include the ways and the strategies to be designed andimplemenetd to increase the awareness of the women in India and the way to increase there roles in the government formulation. The report focuses the ways in which the women should be encouraged to participate in the political formulation along with the men without thinking that the men are superior to the women. The report will be of 3000 words. Introduction India: the State Kulke and Rothermund (2004) discuss that India is the country with the population of around the figure of one billion. It is a big number of the population for the huge country as India. If the statistics are carried out and the numbers are seen than India has the second place in having the greatest number of population, while the greatest population resides in the country of china. India is the country which is located in the part of south Asia and is thereby the south Asian country. The overall area of India is around 3.4 million square killometeres. The area that it takes is counted to be as the seventh greatest area that any country has on y the world map scale. Before the year of 1947, India was ruled by the British people who entered India for the trade purposes. The rule extended for over a hundred years. India declared itself the republic state in the year if 1950s. India is the country having the federal state of government in rule. It has around 25 states and around 7 union territories. Out of the one billion concentrated population that indium has, around 27% of the whole population resides in the urban parts of the country. The statistics of India The per capita GDP that is produced by India, as calculated comes out to be around $US380. The economy growth that India has accounts for more. There are industries in India that work day and night for the economical growth of the country. The cars, automobile industries, the entertainment industry is in the full bloom so as to support the economy of the country. However it has been seen that out of the total percentage of the economy, the percentage that is being contributed by the agricultural sector is 32%. The industries in India contribute 29% to the growing economy. While the greatest percentage of the economical growth contribution is given by the services industry in India, the contributed percentage rounds up to 46%. Ganeri and Wright (2005) argue that health is an issue in India which has to be dealt with in a proper manner. It has been seen that during the childbirth, the life expectancy if the women in India is 58.7% which from the health point of view is very less. Therefore this issue has to be dealt here. Difference in men and women standings: The Underdevelopment Shanthi, (2005) argues that in addition to this, if the system of the education in India is to be analysed, than the literacy rates are the best representatives. It has been seen that the overall literacy rate in India is around 53%. Talking in the specific terms, it has been seen that the literacy rate in the Indian women is around only 40% while in men the literacy rate is higher with the figure of 65%. Talking in terms of the labour force, in terms of the women it is noticed that around 29% of the Indian women are in the labour force. Thereby we can see that in the state if India, there is a difference between the states of men and women in statistics that are found. In Asia it is a general idea that the men are usually superior and more powerful than the women. There is a general aura of power that resides with the men in south Asian territories. The following table shows some of the numbers related to the information given above regarding the women and men states in the country. T Table 1: Key Statistics Keay (2001) says that educational levels in the countries have a huge difference in the case of men and women. There is a significant gap in the educational status of the men and the women. The literacy level inn the case of women is as low as 40%. In this case the differences in the case of the Indian regions can not be ignored. For example in the case of the region Kerala the women are having 100% literacy rate while in the case of Rajhistan only has a 20.4% literacy rate. Table 2: The Educational Status of Women in India Shanthi, (2005) argues that the population of the urban areas in India has increased in the past years. This is also due to the fact that the people in the rural areas have started migrating to the urban areas to get the employment. It is seen that India has around 23 states in which the total population is around 1 million total. Out of this one million the 33% of the total population is that which resides in the urban areas. And the 19% is that population which lives in the well developed urban cities. Governmental structure of India and the politics The British lines Cohen (2002) says that it has been mentioned already and the history says it all that the British ruled over the state of India for over a hundred years. The British although left the country but there signs are still seen to be left behind in many cases. Many if the buildings that they have are mainly laid down by the British. In every case we see that the signs of the British left over are being reflected in the states different aspects. Similarly in the case of politics and the governance, the signs of the British rule are clearly reflected. The major part pos the governance in India are based on the British lines of rules. This can be illustrated by using the fact that the history has that the British rulers tried to introduce the rule of democracy in India. The introduction of the democracy in India by the British was made sure by the constituting the municipal councils along with the municipal corporations in India during the ending period of the 19th century. Tharoor (2006) argues that the British rule also helped the future India which stands today as an independent nation, to get the federal structre of the country that they have today designed along with the government of India act that was laid down in the year of 1935. The modern Indian state political structure If we analyse the modern political governance situation in India we notice that the governance state in India is not totally federal but its quasi federal structure based governance. There are twenty-five states in India, having their own governments. The New Delhi is separate from these twenty five states. Shanthi, (2005) argues that in the case of the federal states, the head of the state is the president who is elected by the very population itself. All the authorities and the powers that are held by the highest authority of the state are held by the president of the state. It is not that the prime minister is not there, the prime minister of the state is there but the prime minister is the one person in the federal government having the position higher than the president but lesser powers and control. However in the case of the state governments as has been described in the case of the 25 states, the power is in the hands of the council of the ministers and the prime minster is the main authority in this case. Women in politics and administration Political participation of the Indian women: the under development James (2000) argues that in the case of India, the women in India play a double role. They have a role as the voters that vote for the political parties and the representatives of the government and the women whoa re the political representatives themselves. The Indian constitution grants equal rights to the man and the woman of the Indian stat when it comes to the state of being the voters and the citizens of the state. It has been seen that the participation in the politics of the men ad the women is comparatively having the same differences as we observed in the case of the education. Therefore we can say that this is another under development scenario being faced by the Indian government. It is seen that the lesser frequency of the women participate in the politics as compared to the men. Table 3: Women participation in Elections Bhatt, (2006) discusses that it has been seen that women have started participating in the elections as voters and the political administration in a better way. It might be due to the reason that some of the political parties and the NGOS have started raising some voices in the matter of women coming and participating and playing there roles in the governmental constitution. In this case it is also needed that the women participating in the elections or in the other sense, in the form of voters should have e the awareness in regards to the political scenario. Ganeri and Wright (2005) argue that the countries which hold the elections on the regular basis make sure that they project the idea of the importance of the women in the political scenario and in this case the political parties have a bent towards the women constituency in the politics. These are the countries that call out to the women for there votes during the elections. Women voters and the women contestants After the year of 1947, it has been seen that the women of the state had all the voting rights. However the number of the women contestants in the political parties sharply declined as compared to the number of the women voting for the contestants. The women voters have played a major ole in the Indian policy since many years. However if the numbers of the women voters are counted. Mandal, (2003)argues that due to the male domination, ion the politics , hardly any space is available for the women to show there domination in the Indian politics and there are hardly any women ion the Indian politics seen to be involved in the decision making bodies and the strategic decision making process in the government. So it has been seen that the number of women in the Indian parliament is not more than 6.2%. Still the number of women in the Indian parliament has not increased to the level that is needed by the government and the constitution that gives equal rights to the men and the women of the state. Table 4; Women in Governments Table 5: Women in Different Government Levels Changes in the Constitutional Amendments Pandya, (2007) says that if the country needs the power in the governments than the roles of the women in the governments should be considered to the highest extent. There were some amendments that were made in the constitution in the year of 1992 known as the 73rd and the 74th amendments which stressed on the role of the women in the governments. These were the amendments that made sure that the governments at the local urban levels should have one third contribution of the women in the goverment making. This is the same number that has been fixed for the women to be the chairpersons in the various sectors of the governments. Kulke and Rothermund (2004) give an argument that it can be seen that the amendments have given the power to the women for completely partcipating in the governments thereby giving the power to the women to make the decisions in the goverments. It has been noticed that the number of women that constitute the panchayats and the municipal bodies in the Indian governments are around 1 million. T Table 6: Figures showing Women candidates in Elections Kulke and Rothermund (2004) argue that there are only a small number of women who occupy stronger positions in the government. The positions that are help by the women include the Secretaries of Departments in the National Government. In addition it has been seen that there is only 6% of the women in the Indian government that hold the stronger positions in the government. Table 7: Women selected in different Indian services Women constraints to participate Shanthi, (2005) argues that the women are not properly trained and they do not have the proper orientation to working the urban or the local level governments which makes than lack the confidence to participate in the elections as the contestants. Secondly women are totally unaware of the municipal acts and rules and regulations that the municipal has. Women are inexperienced in the case of dealing with the cases of the urban development issues and the matters related to that. Ray (2005) argues that the women in India being less educated are unaware of the technical ways to put in the decision making process. It has been seen that the women usually do not get the support from teh higer governments at the municipal level, whether the higher authorities are females or the males. This also includes lesser support and lesser cooperation from the party members. The understanding of the budget system is the main thing that the women should be aware of. In this case the back draft is that the lack of education and the proper knowledge which lest women be unaware of the financial and the budget matters of the state. In the end, the family responsibilities, the criminal dealing s in the politics, the insecurities are all the things that make the women not participate in the politics. Strategies to fight the under development: Remedies Local governments and the Women Participation Keay (2001) argues that as we have observed that the women participation in the Indian government is very less. And this has been illustrated by some of the tables presented. The number of the women voters has been seen to increase but still the percentage of the women that the government have is very less n below 10%. Indian government has to make new strategies to increase such a low percentage of the women in the governance and the politics. The importance of the women in the government reformation is accepted wholly by many countries and it has been seen that the women are the better rulers as compared to men. Ganeri and Wright (2005) argue that there should be some new amendment that makes the women participate in the elections in a stronger way as compared to previously. The idea that the men are somehow superior to the women has to be changed in this case. The power and the space that has been occupied by the man have to be given and should be shared by the women in a better and an organized way to run the government. There have been some steps that have been taken by the Indian governments to make sure that the women participate more and to make the women realise there importance in the Laws promoting the women participation The changes in the legislation Kulke and Rothermund (2004) give an argument that the 74th amendment in the Indian constitution that was made in the year of 1994 was done to make changes in the percentages of the women that reside in the parliaments and the deciding bodies of the governments. The need here is to increase the number and the percentage of the women participation in the parliaments and the governing bodies. This amendment makes sure that at the urban and the urban level governments there should be a reservation of the 33.3% of the seats for the women. The amendment also adds up that out of the total, around one third of the posts of the chairpersons in the different levels of the government should be given to the women. The initiatives taken by the civil society Shanthi, (2005) argues that the political system in India works by making the usage of the democratic system and making the space in the government organizational levels. The women have to make a place for themselves in the Indian governments in the same way that the Indian democratic system works. In the same ways the males have made there space in the government organizations. Since the last years, it has been noticed that the worn have been unable to make any changes in the political system as far as there contribution is concerned. Keay (2001) argues that it has been seen that due to the increasing awareness the women are demanding the roles in the governments. And this has been strengthening by some of the organizations and institutions such as all India institutes of local self government, NIUA, HSM including Rambhau Mhalaji Prabhodini. The list also includes several of the NGOs and the women activation groups believing in the participation of the women including the SEWA, Working Women’s’ Forum, YUVA, Desha, Prayas, Astha, Winavani, SNDT University, Aalochana, Agni, and FASDSP (Forum Against Sexdetermination and Sex Preselection), Stree Mukti Sanghathana. In this case many NGOs have also provided some training to the women. However the training is just not enough. The awareness should be given to the women that they have more than just important roles to be played in the government organizations and they have to fight there insecurities. Obstacles to the remedies Bhatt (2006) discusses a vital point that the trainings that he NGOs provide, the changes in the laws and the legislation is just not enough. In this case even more concentrated efforts are required by the organizations and the institutions to encourage the women to take hold of the key positions in the political field. The organizations and the institutions should recognize the roles and the importance of the women in the political formulation and only than the policies should be devised that help the women understand the importance afterwards. There should be a strict decision making strategy that should be inclined to wards the redesigning trey reservation quotas of the women in the parliament and the assemblies of the Indian governments. Conclusions India is the country having the federal state of government in rule. It has been seen that the literacy rate in the Indian women is around only 40% while in men the literacy rate is higher with the figure of 65%. Talking in terms of the labour force, in terms of the women it is noticed that around 29% of the Indian women are in the labour force. In Asia it is a general idea that the men are usually superior and more powerful than the women. There is a general aura of power that resides with the men in south Asian territories. The literacy level inn the case of women is as low as 40%. In this case the differences in the case of the Indian regions can not be ignored. The countries which hold the elections on the regular basis make sure that they project the idea of the importance of the women in the political scenario and in this case the political parties have a bent towards the women constituency in the politics. Due to the male domination, in the politics, hardly any space is available for the women to show there domination in the Indian politics and there are hardly any women ion the Indian politics seen to be involved in the decision making bodies. The 74th amendments stressed on the role of the women in the governments. It has been seen that due to the increasing awareness the women are demanding the roles in the governess. And this has been strengthening by some of the organizations and institutions such as all India institutes of local self government, NIUA, HSM including Rambhau Mhalaji Prabhodini. The trainings that he NGOIs provide, the changes in the laws and the legislation is just not enough. In this case even more concentrated efforts are required by the organizations and the institutions to encourage the women to take hold of the key positions in the political filed. Recommendations and Analysis For the empowerment of the women in the field of politics it should be made sure that the educations status of the country should be increased and improved. The educations level is the grass root level at which the changes are needed. The changes can thus travel in the upward direction. Through the betterment in the educational system nit only the awareness of the women will increase, they will come out of the idea that that they are inferior to the men. The increase in the educational status comes with the increase in the knowledge of the women regarding various political technicalities, the decision making the budget making and so on. The laws promise the reservation of certain number of seat for women need to implement the rules as well. In this case the women should be given the proper awareness and the training in the political filed so they become more and more learned. Tables Names Page nos. Table no. 1 Key Statistics 09 Table no. 2 The Educational Status of Women in India 10 Table no. 3 Women Participation in elections 13 Table no. 4 Women in Government 14 Table no. 5 Women in Different Government Levels 15 Table no. 6 Figures Showing Women Candidates in elections 16 Table no. 7 Women selected In different Indian services 17 Appendices References Bhatt, E. (2006) We are poor but so many: the story of self-employed women in India. Oxford University Press US. Cohen, S. (2002) India: Emerging Power. Brookings Institution Press. Ganeri, A. and Wright, R. (2005) India. Sea-to-Sea. James, L. (2000) Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India. 13th edition. St Martins Pr. Keay, J. (2001) India: A History. Grove Press. Kulke,H. and Rothermund, D. (2004) A history of India. 4th edition. Routledge. Mandal, J. (2003) Women and Reservation in India. Kalpaz Publications. Pandya, R. (2007) Women in India: Issues, Perspectives and Solutions. New Century Publications. Ray, B. (2005) Women of India: Colonial and Post-colonial Periods. SAGE. Shanthi, K. (2005) Women in India: retrospect and prospect. Anmol Publications PVT. LTD. Tharoor, S. (2006) India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond. Arcade Publishing. Read More