Implement Women's Reservation Act, 2023 Now | Delink from Census and Delimitation | Ensure Equitable Reservations Across All Marginalities | Resist Weaponization of Women's Representation to Dismantle Federal Framework
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Implement Women's Reservation Act, 2023 Now | Delink from Census and Delimitation
Ensure Equitable Reservations Across All Marginalities
Weaponization of Women's Representation to Dismantle Federal Framework and Parliamentary Democracy Unacceptable
15th July 2026: The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA), joins the national campaign launched by the National Coalition for Women's Reservation (NCWR) for the immediate and unconditional implementation of the Women's Reservation Act, 2023 [The Constitution (106th Amendment) Act] from the upcoming monsoon session of the Parliament. We call for a constitutional amendment to the Act to delink it from the census and delimitation process and ensure social justice, inclusion and federalism.
The current moment is an important call to action to support the demands of all historically and socially marginalized women and transgender communities and ensure real inclusion and social justice within reservations. We also assert that the 33% reservation as per the 2023 Act must be implemented at the current strength of Parliament and State Legislatures from the next round of elections. Any move by the government to weaponize women’s reservations to pursue its anti-federal agenda through Lok Sabha seat expansion will be met with strong opposition by all democratic and secular forces, including the feminist movements.
Women have already waited for more than four decades since the first Women's Reservation Bill was introduced by MP Pramila Dandavate as a Private Bill in the early 1980s in the seventh Lok Sabha, and by the H.D. Deve Gowda-led government on 12th September 1996. It was only in 2023 that the Constitutional (106th Amendment) Act was passed by the Parliament, granting 33% reservations to women, including those belonging to the SC and ST communities. However, this constitutional right remained unjustly suspended for three years, because the Act attached unnecessary conditions such as linking it to the census and delimitation processes, despite opposition from many women’s organizations and even some political parties.
In the garb of ‘implementing’ the Act, the government in April 2026, through a Special Session of the Parliament sought to pursue its anti-federal agenda of Lok Sabha seat expansion. However, the Opposition successfully defeated the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, introduced in this regard, which the Union Government and BJP shamelessly portrayed as a ‘defeat of women’s reservation’, while in reality, it was the government’s blatant pursuit of its political ambitions by shooting from the shoulders of women. Implementing women’s reservations has nothing to do with Census and Delimitation and the women’s movement across the country has been demanding that the time for the Parliament to pass the Constitutional Amendment for delinking and ensuring at least 33% reservation for women in Parliament and State Assemblies is NOW.
Women’s demand for reservation in the Parliament is rooted in nearly five decades of democratic struggle. The Towards Equality Report (1974–75), the movement for reservations in local self-government achieved through the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments in 1992 and 1993, legislative efforts across successive governments, sustained mobilizations by women's organizations across the country and crucial interventions in courts, have all kept the agenda alive.
Women's political representation is a democratic right grounded in the constitutional promise of equality, dignity and justice. In the absence of women’s reservation in the Parliament, the highest percentage of women representatives ever in the Indian Parliament has been 14.4% (78 women MPs of the total 543 MPs) in the 2019 Lok Sabha. The percentage of women MPs in the Rajya Sabha has also ranged between 13-16%. These figures are more abysmal across state assemblies at 10%.
This is an abject state of affairs in a country that proudly lays claim to its status as the ‘largest democracy’. Globally, India ranks 151 amongst 185 countries, in terms of women’s representation in national parliament. Democracy loses claim to legitimacy when half the population remains structurally excluded from institutions where political power is exercised, laws are made and the future path of the country is decided. Likewise, democracy is weakened by attempts to undermine India's federal balance by bulldozing Delimitation without due process.
Federalism is a foundational constitutional principle that safeguards India's diversity, regional autonomy and plural democratic character. Any exercise involving delimitation – the redrawing of boundaries of electoral constituencies (both parliamentary and assembly) to reflect changes in population – carries profound Constitutional implications and must emerge through genuinely federal processes involving states and extensive consultations with a cross-section of people, communities and states. India’s federal compact cannot be compromised and less populous and southern states cannot be discriminated against. We demand allocation of 33% seats based on the current states’ seat share in the Parliament.
The feminist movement has never conceptualized representation as an issue of numbers alone; representation of women, transgender, non-binary persons in political decision-making institutions has always been about transforming the character of political power itself. Women bring into legislatures the experiences of care, work, social and community relations, resistance and survival. To date, these critical features of human life have historically been invisibilized and ignored within patriarchal political institutions. Participation of women and those marginalized by gender, especially those at the bottom of hierarchies of caste, class, religion, ethnicity, ability, geography and the like has the potential to reshape public priorities and deepen democratic accountability.
Feminist politics resists authoritarianism that relies on centralized power, patriarchy, casteism, majoritarian nationalism and the suppression of dissent. Authoritarian regimes invoke women symbolically, while denying them substantive political power and democratic participation. Feminist politics reiterates Dr. Ambedkar’s thesis that political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it, social democracy. Feminist movements recognize that social justice, including gender justice, has to be embedded within the ideals of democracy itself.
We uphold the principle that the struggle for women's representation is inseparable from the struggles against caste oppression, patriarchy, communalism, economic dispossession and authoritarianism. Feminist movements stand in solidarity with all movements of the marginalized and exploited such as those of workers, farmers, students and youth, dalits, adivasis, OBCs, NT-DNT communities, transgender, non-binary, queer and intersex persons, persons with disabilities, religious minorities especially oppressed Muslims, Christians, Sikhs etc. and all human rights, democratic, ecological and constitutional forces committed to equality, justice and secular democracy.
The objective of the proposed Constitutional Amendment to the Women’s Reservation Act, according to the feminist movements should be to engender greater democratic participation of vulnerable and marginalized groups, through a process of identifying reserved constituencies in a transparent, participatory manner that is accountable to women, transgender persons and non-binary persons in these communities. The selection of reserved constituencies should not be mere tokenism achieved through an opaque bureaucratic and top-down exercise.
States, democratic institutions and feminist organizations must have meaningful involvement in this process. This process must draw upon the learning of women's reservation in Panchayati Raj Institutions and Urban Local Bodies under the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment. This Constitutional Amendment for Women’s Reservation must have inscribed within it, systems and processes to strengthen the transformative potential of constitutional reservation, and include safeguards against elite capture, proxy representation and further entrenchment of social hierarchies and patronage politics.
ALIFA considers the Constitutional Amendment for Women’s Reservation as the path to expand democracy, redistribute power and strengthen federalism and public institutions committed to equality, secularism, social justice and constitutional morality. ALIFA rejects narrow notions of women's empowerment that celebrate symbolic inclusion while eroding constitutional rights, dismantling the federal fabric, public welfare, suppressing dissent, and intensifying economic inequality. ALIFA opposes the brazen, malafide and instrumental use of the narrative of promoting women’s rights to justify the centralization of power or weakening of democratic institutions and federal framework.
Accordingly, ALIFA calls upon Parliament, political parties and all democratic institutions to:
· Implement the Women's Reservation Act, 2023 by introducing a constitutional amendment bill, in the upcoming monsoon session of the Parliament to delink its operation from the census and delimitation.
· Ensure immediate implementation of 33 % women’s quota, across Parliament and State Assemblies at their current strength, in all future elections.
· Ensure that implementation of the 2023 Act is not used as a pretext for increasing Lok Sabha seats, weakening federalism or altering parliamentary representation without broad democratic consultations and consensus.
· Ensure states’ rights to strengthen India’s federal compact and recognize concerns of the less populous states by allocating 33% reserved women’s seats based on the states’ existing seat share in the Parliament.
· Address structural inequalities in access to political power; specifically for women from historically disadvantaged and socially marginalized communities like Dalit, Adivasi, nomadic and denotified tribes (DNT), OBCs, Muslim, Christian communities, transgender and non-binary persons, LGBTIQIA+ communities and Women with Disabilities.
· Strengthen institutional support for meaningful participation of all aforementioned persons and communities, including central and state funding, feminist orientation and periodic training to ensure a level playing field.
· Establish transparent, participatory and accountable mechanisms for identifying reserved constituencies through State-level commissions, with representatives from Opposition parties, inclusion of at least 33% women, transgender, non-binary members, and checks and balances against overriding veto power of the Election Commission of India (ECI) or Election Commissions of the State.
· Ensure a legal guarantee, through constitutional amendment, that all subsequent reservations would apply to women and persons of marginalized genders.
· Ensure public consultations with feminist and women’s rights organizations at national, state, district and local levels to democratize the entire process of enabling equitable reservations.
ALIFA supports a new constitutional amendment to the 2023 Act for immediate implementation of Women’s Reservation, by delinking it from census and delimitation, as part of a broader national process of democratizing the electoral and parliamentary system, dismantling patriarchy, caste hierarchy, deepening equality and strengthening constitutional democracy. We hope the opposition would remain united in ensuring that the new constitutional amendment in the upcoming monsoon session would strengthen women’s reservation and defeat any other Bill that erodes federalism.
Endorsed by:
1. Aatreyee, Independent Researcher, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh
2. Albertina Almeida, Human Rights Lawyer, Goa
3. Anita Cheria, Feminist Activist, Karnataka
4. Anna George, Concerned citizen, Panaji, Goa
5. Anupriya, Development Practitioner, Bengaluru
6. Anuradha Banerji, Saheli, ALIFA
7. Arundhati Dhuru, NAPM Lucknow
8. Arundhati Ghosh, Independent Consultant, Bangalore
9. Bhanumathi Kalluri, Feminist Activist, Hyderabad
10. Chayanika Shah, Member, Hasrat-e-Zindagi Mamuli, Mumbai
11. Disha D., Lawyer and NAJAR, Gujarat
12. Gabriele Dietrich, Penn Urimay Iyakkam & NAPM Tamil Nadu
13. Gouthami, ALIFA, Goa
14. Hechin Haokip, Social Work Practitioner, Manipur
15. Iswarya S. Advocate, Chennai
16. Jayasree Subramanian, Academician, Hyderabad
17. K. Sajaya, Independent Journalist Hyderabad
18. Kiran, Independent Writer, Himachal Pradesh
19. Kusumam Joseph, Equal Rights Movement, Kerala
20. Laxmi Murthy, Journalist and researcher, Bengaluru
21. Madhu Bhushan, Women's Rights activist, Karnataka
22. Manorama Sharma, Academic, Guwahati
23. Meera Sanghamitra, ALIFA Telangana
24. Mona Mishra, ALIFA, Delhi
25. Mukta Srivastava, Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW)
26. Nandini Rao Akkaraju, feminist activist, New Delhi
27. Nidhi, Feminist Activist, Gurgaon
28. Patricia, Citizen, volunteer, Medchal – Malkajgiri, Telangana
29. Ponnu Ima, Sahayatrika, Trans Non-binary person, Kerala
30. Pranjali Tripathi, Feminist Activist, ALIFA
31. Prof. Rosemary Dzuvichu, Naga Mothers Association, Nagaland
32. Rachana Mudraboyina, Transgender Hijra rights activist, Hum Is Desh Wasi, Hyderabad
33. Radha Kumar, writer, ALIFA Delhi
34. Radhika Desai, Independent Researcher, ALIFA Goa
35. Rahee S. G, ALIYSA Youth Forum and, NAPM
36. Ritash (they/them), Co-founder RANG Foundation, writer & NeuroQueer counsellor
37. S. Seethalakshmi, Independent Researcher, Hyderabad
38. Sagrika, ALIFA and Migrant Solidarity Network, New Delhi
39. Sanju Sadaneera, ALIFA, Rajasthan
40. Shabnam, PhD scholar IIT Delhi
41. Shakun Doundiyakhed, feminist activist, Karnataka
42. Adv Dr Shalu Nigam Delhi NCR
43. Shilpa Parthan, Researcher, Kerala
44. Shiva, Researcher, ALIFA-NAPM, Jaipur
45. Suneetha A, Independent Researcher, ALIFA, Hyderabad.
46. Tarini, filmmaker/researcher, Delhi
47. Vanaja, National Fishworkers Forum (NFF), Tamil Nadu
48. Vanita Mukherjee, ALIFA, Delhi
49. Varna, Independent Development Economist, Delhi
50. Vertika Mani, Advocate and Org. Secretary, PUCL, Delhi
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All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA-NAPM) is a non-partisan, pan-India network of feminist organisations and individuals, committed to gender justice, constitutional and democratic rights
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