Plea to Hon. PM on women reservation bill - Women's reservation bill reserving seats instead of candidates is not in the best interests of the nation

[hitaya]

Women's reservation bill reserving seats instead of candidates is not in the best interests of the nation

Government intervention is necessary, at least for a short time to address key structural issues in a society until it is no longer needed.  However, the concept of reservation has taken on a life of its own in Bharath, hurting its national interests, its advancement.  What started as a 10 years period of reservation for Scheduled castes and tribes has now become a perpetual reservation even when there are those in other communities whose situation is no different for generations since independence.  This was extended to backward castes that today people are identified with labels of 'caste' fueling divisions in the society based on their ancestral occupations that have little relevance to today's realities.  Instead of addressing primary education we went about reserving seats in higher education and jobs that deprive many deserving candidates whose economic plight is no different than those who benefit from the 'reserved' category while seriously jeopardizing quality.  It seems Indian democracy is too afflicted with the disease of reservations.  We are not building a nation of equal opportunity for all citizens, but a citizens of classes where one class takes advantage of the other solely based on their ancestry, no matter how much things have changed. 

No one contends that there is a strong need for larger representation of women in the political arena but is the situation dire that there needs to reserve 33% of seats at all levels.  Are we now going to assign certain constituencies, even if we devise a rotating scheme,  as only available for female candidates? Per media reports, today there are 14% of women in Lok sabha and Rajya Sabha and while this needs to be improved, it can be easily done by encouraging or even mandating a certain number of women candidates by all parties contesting in national elections.  This is what is called Gill's formula who was a Chief Election commissioner and who is believed to have suggested this.   This kind of arrangement would motivate parties to field best candidates for the seats instead of assigning a constituency based on gender which deprives a deserving male candidate.  At least this should have been given a chance before we rush into reserving constituencies.  

The case in State assemblies where the situation is much lacking, particularly in states with poor records such as Kerala, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Assam, and others, perhaps a combination can be used where the parties have to give a certain number of tickets to women candidates with a  percentage of constituencies assigned for female candidates only for a certain period of time.    Such careful schemes can be designed at Panchayat elections instead of one formula at all levels.

Our goal should be that we should not sacrifice getting the best people running the institutions of the country while being sensitive to the realities of the ground.  Otherwise it will lead to compromising the larger interests of the nation itself.  We cannot expect to become a superPower, or even accelerate the expansion of our economy unless we get those with the best capabilities to rise to the top.  We cannot build a nation of people who strongly identify with their nation unless we remove the system that identifies citizens with labels and we cannot address inequalities by replacing them with other inequalities.

Regards,

Satya Dosapati

Bio:

Satya Dosapati is an activist based in the US working on causes for both India and US. He played a critical role in the introduction of paper trail for India’s Electronic Voting Machines called VVPAT in 2010 that put Indian democracy on a strong foothold.  This was done by bringing in top international experts and demonstrating the vulnerabilities in Indian EVMs working with local organizations and CEC Qureshi.  He organized an All American Rally for Trump bringing in various ethnic communities together in support of the Trump Presidential Election that was acknowledged by the Republican party and then candidate Trump.  The event was covered by most of the US national media in Pennsylvania. He is well known for challenging 100 and 30 million dollar lawsuits from Sonia Gandhi proxies in the US when he coordinated a UN protest against Sonia Gandhi posing to represent Mahatma Gandhi values at UN and taking a full page Ad in New York Times exposing her. He has several successes in activist movements such as forcing Andhra Pradesh CM YSR in 2007 in banning conversions inside Hindu temples, bringing attention to the plight of backward caste minor girls in West Bengal being kidnapped and thrown into sexual slavery through love jihad.  He led a protest against University of Pennsylvania (Wharton economic forum) for dropping Narendra Modi from keynote speech because of false allegations of some leftist professors and got a (private) apology from UPenn President .   He initiated the first anti-corruption conference working with Ajit Doval and Dr. Swamy before Anna Hazare protest at New Delhi Vivekananda International foundation and brought in top international anti-corruption Organizations personnel from UN (UNODC) and Europe (Eurodad) and other institutions.   His presentation on Plunder of India by Sonia UPA received nearly 2 lacs hits. He was also engaged in animal rights movements in the US for health, environment, and compassion. He received his bachelors from IIT Chennai with graduate degrees in the US and is pursuing a career in Telecom in the US.  His Koo id is @SatyaDosapati and several of his articles were published in First Post, PGurus and OpIndia news portals.   His blog is https://SatyaBlog.org.