Best Of Both Sides: Women’s Reservation Can Give A Voice To Those Who Haven’t Had One

Aditi Narayani Paswan

It is the small yet impactful changes happening in India’s villages which show that a democratic transformation is underway. Here, the meaning of nari shakti is being quietly, but decisively, redefined — it is visible in how women’s political participation through the Panchayati Raj institutions has initiated a subtle yet profound restructuring of power relations. Women are becoming stakeholders by exercising legitimate authority over public resources — deciding where a hand pump is installed, which welfare scheme is prioritised, and how village needs are articulated. Empowerment, for them, is not performative radicalism but the everyday practice of decision-making, anchored in the institutional power conferred on them by reservation, which is not charity but a corrective measure.

The 73rd Constitutional Amendment deepened democratic governance in India by making it more transparent, accountable, equitable and participatory. It ensured effective political participation of women both as conscious voters and as vocal representatives.

When talking about women who have come to power at the panchayat level, there is a tendency to make the reductionist pradhan pati argument. Yet, those who make this argument forget one simple truth: These are women who are elected representatives and it is their signatures that authorise state action. This authority, far from being procedural, becomes constitutive of power — extending from governance into the household, where decisions on daughters’ education, nutrition, and marriage are increasingly being renegotiated.

It is within this continuum that the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam must be located. If the Panchayati Raj reservation has revolutionised the grammar of power at the grassroots, extending women’s representation to the higher legislatures holds the potential to amplify this change structurally. The lesson from rural India is clear: Representation is the beginning of holistic women’s empowerment. Women’s reservation in Parliament and state assemblies has the potential to address the democratic deficit by institutionalising the presence of women across legislatures — ensuring that women in power are not an exception but a norm, thus further bolstering the ethos of social justice.

Women’s reservation would be the single biggest reform to political and moral democracy since the framing of the Constitution itself. It would force regional and national parties to initiate internal democratic reforms and recalibrate their programmes to meet the expectations of women, the biggest electorate of the country. Women leaders having a greater say in the nation’s politics and policies would enable the creation of a sustainable ecosystem for women’s leadership and participation in other fields.

The trickle-down effect would force corporate India to rethink its glass ceilings or break it altogether, ensuring more women in boardrooms. In the coming decades, it would create a broad-based grassroots female leadership.

The spillover effect would be the diminishing importance of dynastic, elite politics and the creation of a new political class that truly embraces those pushed to the margins.

As political representation of women grows, it would help advance rights-based discourse. It would be a crucial instrument for social and gender justice which would further dismantle attempts to frame issues affecting women through a narrow, elitist lens. Crucially, the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam seeks to move beyond token representation by enabling Dalit women to exercise independent political agency, recognising their distinct experiences at the intersection of caste and gender, and allowing them to articulate their own priorities within multiple overlapping hierarchies.

Women’s representation in political and policymaking institutions is crucial for enabling their substantive participation across the full spectrum of social life. In the absence of gendered representation in these domains, women’s agency remains structurally limited and their participation continues to be circumscribed by hegemonic power relations.

Women’s leadership in politics, government, and public life will not only help advance the goal of gender equality — it can also help bring about sustainable and inclusive growth and development. Hence, women’s reservation in legislatures is, in the truest sense, a reform that has the potential to destabilise the political hegemony that has persisted for centuries. The true measure of success for this is not increasing the number of sari-clad members in Parliament but of ensuring that the “broken people” have a greater voice. It will be seen in the transition from welfare citizenship to political citizenship and the uncomfortable questions about dignity, equity and representation that will be asked, more and more, in the corridors of power.