Women’s Reservation Bill – will the bill?

I really do not know what the women’s bill will do. It is almost about to “go through” this time despite the opposition and despite Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad withdrawing support to the UPA.

But just to talk about it prima facie without any personal strings attached, the bill would mean that the number of women in the Lok Sabha would go up from 59 to 179 (out of the elected 543 members). As a friend of mine (a male, obviously, read on) puts it, it would mean that the parliament sessions would no longer be “boring” and would have an element of glamour. How I see it is that there would be 120 men less in the house and all these men should/would be opposing the bill.

Even as I write this, there is a lot of action going on within the parliament, copies of the tabled bill have been torn, would this bill ensure that such unruliness will not prevail as women are more civilized? Interestingly, this bill has taught me a lot about our legislative system – if there are too many disruptors in the house, those in favour can be taken out in the lobby to carry out the discussions!!

Anyhow, coming back to the point, will this bill actually help us in any way? I fear it might create more Rabri Devis (read as puppet of Lalu Prasad) and Pratibha Devi’s (who I believe is the first woman president of the nation, more because of chance and not because of criteria — kindly do not sue me for this, just an opinion!)

Just to go back to my work and cut the long story short, can we have a bill for women’s rights than for women’s reservation? Please pass a bill that would ensure that parents/relatives/locality would be punished if a girl child is aborted in the womb/killed on birth, not educated, not given nutritious food; pass a bill that would bring to book those who indulge in harassment – abuse, eve teasing, stare at women, make them uncomfortable at work et al……….

…… to be continued…….