Historic Women Reservation Bill Passed, But Does It Truly Empower Women In Lok Sabha?

Recently, IPU-Parline, a free resource that collects data on national parliaments around the world, came out with the latest ranking of countries in terms of representation of women in government. Needless to say, India could have performed better. It was formerly ranked 145th but has since slid five places to 150th.

India has the world,'s largest population, with women accounting for more than 48%, however, they still remain underrepresented in Parliament. In the most recent elections, women occupied only 73 of the Lower House's 543 seats. This represents a decrease from the 2019 elections, when women gained 78 seats.

It Got Better Over Time

In the very first elections in 1952, women occupied only 4.41% of Lok Sabha. This number gradually increased to over 6% and fell again below 4% in 1971. Ironically, this was when Indira Gandhi, India's first and only female Prime Minister, was in power. The year 2019 marked the highest number of female MPs we've had, with 14.7% of seats won by women, which put India at the 145th position in IPU-Parline's ranking. The progress, however, has been gradual but not linear.

India passed the Women's Representation Bill in 2023, which ensures that 33% of seats would be reserved for women. This step was taken in order to secure better participation of women in Parliament. While this legislature was not implemented in the recent elections due to census and delimitation requirements, it is a step in the right direction to create stronger political empowerment for women. 

“Typically, achieving a critical mass of 30 percent representation by women in Parliament is known to yield positive outcomes for women’s empowerment”, Susan Ferguson, UN Women’s India Country Representative, said in a statement.

Rwanda, which has the highest number of female members in their Parliament, has a reservation of only 30%. With India exceeding this percentage and the enactment of the bill in the 2029 elections, hopefully, we'll see a positive change in how women are represented in the Indian government.