POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN LOK SABHA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF 1ST AND 18TH LOK SABHA

The 20th century marked the success of democracy when the Right to Franchise for women gained recognition. With the spread of democracy and the extension of suffrage, the movement for the enfranchisement of women also got an impetus. After the Second World War, almost all countries had given this right to their women as a matter of course. In the Indian context, Mahatma Gandhi, who brought a completely new dimension into the debate on the women’s question, said, “Women must have votes and an equal legal status. However, the problem does not end there. It only commences at the point where women begin to affect the political deliberations of the nation.” In his view, equal political and legal rights for women were merely the beginning of a process that would see women at the forefront of society's transformation by ending all forms of exploitation. Women’s political rights and political status served as means in achieving political, social, and economic justice as well as ‘equality of status’ and opportunities. Therefore, its efficiency should be examined. Complete and absolute equality of sexes, guaranteed under Chapters III and IV of the Indian Constitution, which prohibit discrimination on the ground of sex and also allow legislation for protection and betterment of women in addition to equality was indeed revolutionary and a departure from Indian traditions. However, the irony remains that 75 years of constitutional guarantees to suffrage rights and the right to stand in elections, yet we don’t see equality in the number of women vis-à-vis men in the Lok Sabha. How far have the constitutional guarantees, been realised in practice? What have been the major determinants of the trend either towards equality or away from it? Do women have the capacity to participate fully in the power process of society? Do they differ from men in their method of seeking and wielding power? Some of these questions are examined in this paper. An attempt has been made to compare the political participation of women in the first and the eighteenth Lok Sabha.