Delimitation and Women's Reservation

There is uproar in southern states over the delimitation and women's reservation bill 2026. The argument being that southern states have done better family planning and hence the population growth rate in southern states is lower than northern states and these states will lose out on parliamentary seats if delimitation is done based on current population. This argument has kept the Lok Sabha constituencies fixed since 1973 delimitation which was done based on 1971 census. It has been more than 50 years or about 2/3 the life of the Republic since when the political parties in southern states have opposed delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies based on the argument that fertility rates in southern states is less than the fertility rates in northern states and hence the southern states will lose out on parliamentary seats. It is not as if the fertility rate in northern states has not come down. There is uneven development in the country and when it comes to providing more support to the lagging states there is opposition form the southern states. This creates a chicken and egg situation because reduction is fertility rate depends on overall development and education of a region.

The argument of opposing census based delimitation is based on a flawed view of the parliamentary system under Indian constitution. It should be understood by everyone that Lok Sabha does not represent states. Lok Sabha is peoples council that is represented by constituencies. As far as representation of states in the parliament is concerned it is provided by the council of states which is the Rajya Sabha. States do not have a special status for election of member of parliaments to Lok Sabha. States are merely administrative divisions and do not represent any kind of sub nationality. New states have continuously been created for administrative and other reasons. But if they start giving rise to sub nationalism then that is not in interest of the republic. The idea of southern Indian states being at odds with northern Indian states is a constructed identity based politics of regional parties with is detrimental to national integration and fraternity between citizens of the country. 

In a one man one vote system each vote should have equal weightage in the Parliament. If we have certain constituencies which have electorate running into thousands of voters and other electorates with lakhs of voters then we have an imbalanced representation in the parliament. Nobody ever objects to delimitation based on census within state boundaries but somehow when the same logic is being applied to Lok Sabha constituencies suddenly the argument about states losing out on parliamentary seats is being raised thanks to regional politics. As if an MP elected for a parliamentary constituency in northern India is suddenly an enemy of the citizens in a constituency in Southern India and will not act in national interest. What ever regional or state interest exists are dealt with by the state governments which have sufficient powers. Member of parliaments elected from any part of the country should make decisions on national interest and as mentioned earlier the states are already represented in the Rajya Sabha which has an indirect election. 

Having made and argument in the favor of delimitation based on census which is mandated in the constitution anyways I would like to make a separate argument against this bill. The number of seats in Lok Sabha since the first delimitation based on 1951 census have increased by approximately 50 members. We already have a large parliament. In various debates over laws in the parliament the MPs hardly get anytime to make their statements. An MP hardly gets 5-10 minutes of uninterrupted time to make his or her arguments. If the number of seats is increased from 543 to 816 that is a 50% increase in the strength of the Lok Sabha. This will certainly damage the quality of debate in the parliament. The financial burden on the tax payers of country for these additional VIP members and their entourage which lives on the exchequer will also increase. The idea of women's reservation of 33% and the sub reservation amongst women for SC/ST communities is also an unfortunate continuation of the one medicine of every ailment principle which has afflicted Indian political class. We need to now move away from reservation politics to save the republic. There are no structural nor legal barriers to women entering politics in the country. If in any constituency and electorate can benefit from a more suitable male candidate to represent them then why should they be limited for the choice of only female candidates. It is not as if there is any bar on women from contesting in any unreserved seats against male candidates. If political parties want to increase women's representation they should do so at party level by giving more tickets to women. We don't need to reserve seats in the parliament for this.

India should move on from such social engineering projects and instead of doing down the road of further reservations its time to do away with reservations starting with OBC reservations for a more merit based equal treatment under the law.