Women's Reservation Bill skips OBC quota - will the subalterns be heard? - video Dailymotion

OutlookIndia

As the Women's Reservation Bill has been tabled in Parliament, the debate over the representation of OBC and minority women has started to again gain strength. For the last 27 years there were two major contentions regarding the bill. The first was the sub-quota for the SC/ST women and the second was the reservation of women from OBC and minority communities. While the current Bill gives 33 per cent reservation to women belonging to SC/ST community within the pre-existing reserved category, women from OBCs and minorities are nowhere in the scene. Alongside SP and RJD, Congress has also joined the bandwagon to demand representation of OBC and minorities women. However, Mayawati has taken a U-turn and said that her party would support the bill without any precondition.   In this context, the question arises, whether reservation will actually help women from the marginalised sections? And will the subalterns be heard?  #WomenReservationBill #Modi #NarendraModi #Modi #BJP #Representation #Identity #RajivGandhi #Feminism #Politics #Women #India #Elections

Transcript

00:00 Hi, hello, this is Abhigvendra Charia from Outlook Magazine.

00:03 Today we are going to discuss,

00:05 or rather talk about, Women's Reservation Bill.

00:08 So for the last three decades, as we know,

00:10 there have been struggles to pass

00:12 this Women's Reservation Bill.

00:14 But what has been the major concerns of the bills?

00:18 Rather, we have found that several parties,

00:20 from Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal,

00:22 earlier even JDU, recently, recently Congress,

00:26 they have said that this Women's Reservation Bill

00:30 doesn't give proper representation

00:32 to the marginalized woman,

00:34 that is the OBC woman and the minorities.

00:38 So in this context, we have to understand

00:40 there are two trajectories of the bill,

00:44 or the whole reservation scenario.

00:46 Number one, as far as the Women's Reservation Bill

00:48 is concerned, in its current form,

00:51 it offers 33% reservation to the woman, number one.

00:55 Number two, it offers 33% reservation to the SCST woman

01:00 from the SCST quota.

01:03 If we just break it down to understand it in a simple manner,

01:08 then we get some numbers that in current Lok Sabha situation

01:13 there's 543 seats, among which 181 will be reserved

01:17 for the woman, that is one third of it.

01:19 And in current situation, 131 is the total number

01:22 of the SCST seats, among which 44 seats

01:24 will be reserved for the SCST woman.

01:27 But the condition is, in today's time,

01:29 we have 78 women MP in the Lok Sabha,

01:32 but among them only 20 women MPs are from SCST community,

01:37 the percentage is around 26%.

01:39 This percentage will remain intact.

01:42 Why is it important?

01:43 Because Mayawati, during 90s and even during

01:47 the last few years, claimed it very clearly

01:49 that the SCST quota should not be touched.

01:52 What she rather said, that the woman from the SCST community

01:56 should be given some reservation

01:59 from the total woman's reservation chunk.

02:02 She said that otherwise, what rightfully

02:06 is SCST community, SCST women, they will not get that.

02:10 So in this context, as it has not been done,

02:13 the sub quota has not been given,

02:15 will it affect the SCST community, this woman,

02:18 or will it some way or other affect

02:21 the whole marginalized groups?

02:22 This is one part of the second part

02:23 is the reservation of the OBC and minorities.

02:27 So in this case, for the last 30 years,

02:30 as I was just saying that for 30 years,

02:33 OBC reservation and the minority woman reservation

02:35 have been the major issue of concern.

02:37 So why is it so big issue?

02:39 Because the point is, we don't have any caste census,

02:43 we don't know the population of OBC,

02:45 but if the Mundell Commission is concerned,

02:47 the Mundell Commission's point is to be taken seriously,

02:51 then we have 52%, at least in 90s,

02:53 we had 52% OBC population.

02:56 But recently, if I just go by the recent data

02:59 that's published in 2021

03:02 by the United District Information System

03:04 for Education Plus, they take the school enrollment data

03:07 and what they do in this case,

03:08 they just find out that what is the proportion

03:10 of the OBCs in this case.

03:12 And so they found out that 45% of the population is OBC.

03:16 So this huge number of OBC population

03:20 cannot be just denied the reservation

03:23 the way it has been denied.

03:24 And that's the major context of the debate

03:26 in Baldigarjun Khargi yesterday,

03:27 Sonia Gandhi is backing for this as well.

03:29 So why is this government so feared of rather

03:32 any upper caste government has been feared

03:34 of OBC communities or the minority communities

03:36 in terms of giving a reservation?

03:37 For this case, we have to understand,

03:39 rather I would like to quote one article

03:43 written by Nivedita Menon,

03:44 where she clearly says that's very important

03:47 that I quote Nivedita Menon,

03:48 as Vasanthi Raman points out,

03:50 OBCs and Muslims given their numerical strength

03:52 as well as their social location,

03:54 pose a greater threat to upper castes than SC/STs

03:57 about whom some complacency was still possible.

04:01 So in this case, as we have already seen

04:03 that the OBCs and minorities

04:04 don't have their representation,

04:06 SCs and STs have their representation,

04:07 but whatever the representation earlier was,

04:09 it will almost be remain intact.

04:10 So in this context, we have to ask,

04:13 will the marginalized voice be heard in the parliament

04:16 or will the subaltern woman speak ever?

04:19 For more, just click the link below.

Women's Reservation Bill skips OBC quota - will the subalterns be heard?

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