Under the banner of the National Coalition for Women's Reservation, comprising the All India Progressive Women's Association (AIPWA) and several other women's organisations, a protest was held at Jantar Mantar on July 21 demanding the unconditional implementation of the Women's Reservation Bill in the upcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament.
Women from Delhi and neighbouring states participated in large numbers, asserting that the long-pending demand for 33% reservation for women in legislatures cannot be subjected to further delays or conditionalities. The protesters demanded that the reservation be implemented immediately in the existing Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies and that it must not be linked to the census or the delimitation process.
The demonstration reiterated two central demands: immediate implementation of 33% reservation for women in Parliament and State Assemblies during the current Monsoon Session, and complete delinking of the Women's Reservation Bill from census and delimitation.
Addressing the gathering, AIPWA National General Secretary Meena Tiwari condemned the brutal police repression unleashed on students and youth in Delhi on July 20, stating that the same authoritarian government that suppresses democratic protests is also denying women their democratic right to political representation.
Meena Tiwari said that the BJP government is deliberately linking women's reservation with delimitation in order to advance its communal and divisive political agenda. She said women across the country have rejected this manoeuvre and are united in demanding the unconditional implementation of 33% reservation. "The government will have to bow before the united voice of women and pass the Women's Reservation Bill in this very Monsoon Session," she asserted.
Speaking at the protest, AIPWA National Secretary Comrade Shweta Raj highlighted that while large numbers of women have had their names excluded from the NRC, the BJP government continues to delay women's political representation by attaching arbitrary conditions to the Women's Reservation Bill. She said the attempt to tie the Bill to delimitation is aimed at deepening communal polarisation, pointing to recent developments in Assam and Jammu & Kashmir as examples of this strategy. She recalled that during the previous Parliament session, the Opposition inside Parliament and women's organisations across the country had jointly resisted this communal agenda. She called upon democratic forces to unite and intensify the nationwide struggle for the unconditional passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in the current Monsoon Session.
The protest concluded with a resolve to broaden the campaign across the country until the Women's Reservation Bill is implemented unconditionally, and women secure their long-denied constitutional right to equal political representation.
