Women's reservation bill

 The present government is proceeding ahead with the women's reservation bill. They want to expand the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and give this excess seats to the women. It is being touted as gift from Mr. Narendra Modi to the womenfolk of India. It will be advertised repeatedly that this government has done something which no other government had the guts to do and so they must be voted back to power. It is purely a tactic to try and ensure that they win the next set of elections, especially the one in West Bengal and hence the timing. Day by day this government is revealing and reveling in the cunning politics of Machiavelli and Chanakya.

The women of India need to decide do they need reservation or equality. Reservation is given for those who are incapable of competing with the rest. It is like the handicap in golf or horse racing or many of other such sports. Do the women want to accept that they cannot compete with men for the open seats?

The  power to bring equality in the society lies with the womenfolk. The men have no reason to try to bring about this equality among genders. Most are not even willing to talk and those who talk, tell that women are weak and need to be protected. The womenfolk need to train their sons, brothers, and other menfolk around them so that they start treating women as equals. It will take a few generations for this to turn around, but I find only a few women walking down this path. Unless this becomes a mass movement, it is unlikely to find traction. In my opinion radical feminism is not a good way to approach this problem of patriarchy. And the women need to ensure that it doesn't make a complete U-Turn.

Yes biologically and physically, on an average, the women are weaker then men, but in the rest they can be equal if not better. To fight elections one does not need physical strength, so why the reservation?

The other issue is that, it is already difficult to get to consensus with 500+ people, with 800+ people on the floor it is going to be chaos.

This is just optics for the BJP and Narendra Modi.

The second point is that, to increase the number of seats, delimitation will be mooted. While the government has stated that they will not increase the seats of any state and that the increase is bound to be proportional, it is becoming more and more difficult to believe what this government says. It has lost its credibility to a large extent. It will be surprising if the number of seats in the Northern state where BJP is strong, get the bulk of the increase in seats. It is unlikely that the Southern states will get any kind of significant increase of seats.

This women's reservation bill should raise an alarm among the womenfolk, but it will more or less be passed unanimously as every party will want to stake the claim that they were the ones who brought the women's reservation bill and hence they should be the one's to get the credit.