What the Women's Reservation Bill Means for Women

Grand Tamasha

In September, India’s parliament passed a long-anticipated piece of legislation, known as the Women’s Reservation Bill.

The bill—which sailed through both houses of Parliament within days of being introduced— reserves one-third of seats in the national parliament and the various state assemblies for women—formalizing a quota that has long existed at the local levels in India, but never at higher levels of politics.

To discuss the bill—what it says, why it was passed, and what it might mean for Indian politics more generally—Milan is joined on the show this week by the political scientist Carole Spary, who is Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham and Director of the university’s Asia Research Institute.

She is the author of two important books related to female representation: Gender, Development, and the State in India and Performing Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament (with Shirin Rai).

Milan and Carole discuss the state of female political representation in India today, why getting a women’s reservation bill passed has taken so long, and why its implementation is likely to be delayed for years.

Plus, the two discuss the firsthand experience of women inside the halls of Parliament and whether India is witnessing a new era of “women-centric” governance.

Episode notes:

1. Carole Spary, “Women candidates, women voters, and the gender politics of India’s 2019 parliamentary election,” Contemporary South Asia 28, no. 2 (2020): 223-241.

2. Carole Spary, “Missed opportunities: time is running out for the Indian government to pass legislative gender quotas bill,” King’s India Institute, November 1, 2018.

3. Shireen M. Rai and Carole Spary, “Populism, parliament, and performance,” Seminar 752 (April 2022).