Gender equity appears to remain a chimaera in Kerala politics. Former Mahila Congress State president Lathika Subash’s ‘tonsure act’ in front of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee headquarters at Indira Bhavan on Sunday seems to suggest so.
The ‘mutinous deed’ has pushed women’s equality to the forefront of the electoral debate. Out of the 2.67 crore voters in Kerala, around 1.37 crore are women. However, their representation in electoral politics has remained disgracefully low.
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For one, the 14th Kerala Assembly had only eight women members out of 140. The Congress had none till Shanimol Usman won the Aroor Assembly byelection in 2019.
Quota on paper
The V.S. Achuthanandan government’s decision in 2009 to reserve 50% of local body seats for women was a watershed in Kerala’s history. Last year, an estimated 36,305 women contested the local body polls.
However, the adoption of a minimum of 33% gender quota for Assembly and Lok Sabha elections has remained mainly on paper. Ms. Subash’s singular protest has had a profound effect on several powerful women influencers.
In Tamil Nadu, actor and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Khushbu Sundar said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi routinely paid lip service to gender equality. But, he has done nothing for the cause. Ms. Subash was a casualty of Congress’s misogynist politics.
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Annie Raja, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader and general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women, said gender parity in electoral politics remained a pipe dream.
KPCC vice president and former State Women’s Commission chairperson K.C. Rosakutty said Ms. Subash had dared the dominant ideology of patriarchy in politics.
Health Minister K.K. Shylaja said the Congress had passed over several eligible women for elected office. Shobhana George, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] fellow traveller and vice chairperson of the Kerala Khadi and Village Industries Board, said she knew from experience that the Congress leadership rarely accommodated women in leadership positions.
No tectonic shift here
Major political parties in Kerala had at the outset of the electoral campaign announced a tectonic shift in candidate selection. The new political landscape demanded more youth and women in the fray, they said. However, the promised change never came.
The CPI(M) and the BJP have fielded 12 women each. The Congress has nine women in the contest so far. Critics have termed the ‘meagre’ allocation mere tokenism.
