POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN,

EDUCATION AND
WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
BY
DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 CONCEPT
• For the last two decades, the political
participation of women in a surfacing debate.
There are reasons for this hyped situation. The
debate moves in terms of concepts of women
empowerment, women rights, gender
neutrality and gender bias; and the like.
• There is a negligible involvement of women in
politics.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 Conti..
• Women constitute almost half of the
population of India but still their
representation in Lok Sabha is just 11.8
percent and in Rajya Sabha it is just 11.2
percent.
• Nearly 9 out of 10 legislators are men in
Indian political systems. The representation
can be seen and analyzed from the data
available.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 Conti…
• Most of the women who have held position
president, prime minister and chief ministers and
who have been elected on high profiled political
position are from families with political
background.
• According to the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU)
India ranks 149th in a93 countries of the world in
terms of political participation and
representation of women. The global imagery is
also affected in terms of gender bias.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 Conti…
• Participation of women in state assemblies is
even very low, that is only 8 percent.
• In 1976 first time, the decision making role of
women was assessed and acknowledged through
a report published by the Committee on status of
women set up by Indian government.
• In 1993, 73rd and 74th amendment proposed 33
percent reservation for women in local
governance.
BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI
 Conti..
• In 1996 due to deep fall in women political
participation, the Women’s Reservation Bill
was introduced. It got passed in Rajya Sabha
but failed to be passed in Lok Sabha.
• The logic of Lok Sabha’s refusal was that there
is no need of reservation for women, but
there is a need to induce courage and
confidence in women to participate
themselves.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 FACTORS AFFECTING THE SCENARIO
• Education- education and literacy are tools for
growth; and also pave way for political
participation of women. It is through
educational institutions that one gets aware
about the opportunities one can explore to
use one’s skills for income earning and
development. Education acts as catalyst for
creating political awareness in all classes,
hence can help to encourage women to
participate more.
BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI
 Conti…
• Technical training and guidance- technical
training is a strong alternative to literacy when
it comes to understand the scenario of work
participation of women as well as men.
Technical training gives impetus to work
participation and also pushes down the
pressures of illiteracy. This is a component of
functional literacy campaigns also and can be
useful for person of any age.
BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI
 Conti..
• Traditional role playing affects time
management. Women are said to be more
responsible for household management,
mothering, handing backgrounds for the
agrarian communities, hence they are not
given chance to explore political scenario and
opportunities.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 Conti…
• Lack of support by political parties and fear of
public harassment. The openness in society
today makes everyone equally available to the
public for criticism, which should be there in
political scenario. But in male dominant
societies like India’s the stigma is bigger and
more serious in case of women. Harassment
by other political parties, false blaming
discourage women to participate from
ordinary families.
BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI
 Conti…
• Patriarch structure and male dominance
makes women political puppet if they
participate and make them disabled to take
decisions if they wish to politically participate.
Even their casting of vote is influenced. In
such a scenario, taking big decisions regarding
representation in politics and elections is a big
question.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 Conti…
• Joint family structures imposing strongly
‘pressured’ and ‘intergenerational’ impositions.
The social pressure in joint family structure is
more rigorous than that of the nuclear families;
since women cater larger number of generations
in a household. It becomes tedious to break the
traditional norms and to convince the elderly
people of home to allow women to step out and
earn. In many cases like this, political
participation is a taboo.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 SUGGESTIONS
• Community Studies-there is a need to study
community that is ‘women’ in particular from
different angles; like women in rural areas,
women in urban areas, illiterate women,
women in remote areas, sex ratio, women in
mountainous regions, and the like.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 Conti..
• Manifesto of national political parties must
reflect this point. All political parties
themselves must ponder over this issue as a
moral political responsibility and must make it
a part o their political manifesto that more
and more are encouraged to participate.

BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI

 Conti…
• Stringent check over social media is the need
of the hour. The posts are humiliating pictures
are made an circulated without any check. As
it could be done in case of corona, similarly it
can be checked in case of political and social
imaging of women also. This could curb the
fear of social harassment and stigma in
women and strong women can make it a lead
to make others also come up in front.
BY. DR. JASLEEN KEWLANI RAMBANI