Thank you very much Mr Sharad Joshi
186 – 1
Final Women’s Quota scorecard in the Rajya Sabha
In Reality Check tradition, we take this occasion to honour the ‘-1’ in ‘186-1’
Sharad Joshi of Swatantra Bharat Paksh (Maharashtra) was the lone dissenter. While many bloggers and media outlets are quick to condemn unruly opposition, they completely ignore civilized dissent.
Here is what he has to say :
(Emphasis added by me to help lazy reader)
SHRI SHARAD ANANTRAO JOSHI (MAHARASHTRA): Sir, I rise to speak on behalf of Swatantra Bharat Paksh Party. The position of my party can be very briefly summarised as follows: Political empowerment for women – a thumping yes, yes, yes. Reservation – a fairly big question mark. And, Rotation and lottery system – an absolute No, No, No. It was in 1986 that the Shetakari Mahila Aghadi of my party, the Rural Women’s Organisation in Maharashtra, decided for the first time to have 100 per cent women’s panel for contesting the Panchayati Raj elections. It was the Congress (I) Party, under Shri Shankar Lal Chauhan in Maharashtra, who opposed that idea and postponed all elections to the Panchayati Raj for three years running. And it was only after that that they accepted the concept of 33 per cent reservation. Sir, hon. Mishra of the BSP raised the question: Where does this reservation come from? This is the genesis of 33 per cent. Now, the question is: Has the reservation, actually, ever given benefit to any of the targeted communities? And our experience is not very happy. This problem could have easily been solved by a system of proportional representation rather than the Party List system. That would take care of the entire set of problems connected with reservation. And, the scenes that we have witnessed in the last two days could have also been avoided had we included proportional representation instead of the Party List system.
Lastly, coming to the lottery-cum-rotation system, this is not a minor defect. I still insist that this is a fatal defect in the system. Here, we choose a constituency first, and it is very likely that for that constituency, there may not be an enthusiastic woman candidate. On the other hand, it is likely that a man has nursed that constituency for some time.
This will unnecessarily create bitterness against the women’s movement. Sir, secondly, it is also likely that this opportunity will be used by established leaders for pushing the candidature of their family members which is
not the purpose of this Bill at all. Sir, once a woman is elected, she would know that she does not stand a chance of getting the ‘woman reserved constituency’ again. Therefore, she would not be equally enthusiastic about nursing the constituency. Similarly, the men candidates who get elected would also have doubts about their letting to contest that election once again from the constituency because the chances that it will be available to them would be only 50:50. Under these circumstances, Sir, the major effect will be that all the constituencies will be badly nursed.
And, lastly, Sir, this kind of a reservation system will make it impossible for any House to have more than 33 per cent repeaters at any time. So, we will lack the experienced people in the Legislatures and the Parliament. That could prove to be fatal for the Indian Democracy.
Thank you, Sir.
No ! Thank you Sir. For not being part of the sheep herd !
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Reality Check India 
thanks Mr. Joshi , good and logical arguments!
not like that of Sonia that it was a dream of rajeev , how can it be a dream of rajeev whn he was assasinated in early 90’s and bill was proposed for the first time only in 1996….whtsoever u think people will take it as a gud step tell it was a rajeev’s dream, so wht a utter non sense it is.
Yes, because any discussion a husband may have with his wife while alive, would completely disappear from memory of the wife, when he dies.
“Rajeev is dead! that discussion we had about his dream 10 years before his death, has suddenly evaporated from my memory cells. Alas!”
I love how your intelligent mind functions, and bulldozes over the obvious logic and basic comprehension.
You gotta admit it is a bit too coincidental, it never came up before. What else do you think they had pillow talks about? Let’s count them, Rajiv Gandhi Bridge, numerous Rajiv Gandhi Yojanas, Rajiv Gandhi institute of management.
Meanwhile your friends in the media can’t stop talking about how this is Sonia’s bill, another feather in her crown etc. You know, I think this defeats the purpose of the bill. Isn’t this bill supposed to make women come out of their husbands’ shadows? Yet, lika a patibrata nari she gives her late husband credit for it. Sort of ruined it for me, if you ask me.
Superb post RC…Thanks for highlighting this.
Sharad Joshi – Lone Dissenter and Ron Paul of India. 🙂
I would call him the lone chap willing to openly accept his being an MCP.
The first half can be summarized as “My party was the one responsible for this great idea. They stole our idea, even tho now I am against this awesome idea that was earlier ours. I want the creditz!”
Second half. “I am all for the idea, but I don’t like the implementation. Because of course, we can’t change the implementation later if a problem is found. So I will vote against the idea itself. And I am a cynic and god forbid anyone benefits, lest a few misuse it”.
Last half. “I don’t have any problems with the existing loopholes which allow a jailed criminal to make his illiterate wife the puppet chief minister. I will do nothing to fix that being repeated. But the sky will fall, if women quota sees some folks do what they have already been doing all along anyways.
Oh and of course, a candidate ignoring his constituency will not turn the people against his party as whole. No sir! Party has no control over whether its candidates keep their constituents happy or not, no way!”.
And also the unspoken part – ” I, Sharad Joshi, am an MCP idiot whose masculinity is threatened by this bill”.
Who is more chauvinistic, those who propose improvements to it or those who want to cling to every clause? For instance, why do you want to shortchange women with only 33% seats? Shouldn’t we reserve 50% seats?
MCP!
Abhi, are you stupid? You believe that by coercing an electorate to forgo and susbstitute their best candidate for what YOU think is right will solve the problems of this country?
Please start minding your own business, and let other people mind their own.
RC,
The more I think about it,I feel that we are all chasing shadows.The West is what it is primarily by technology and capital accumulation.Military superiority helped in capital accumulation and in turn technology supported military superiority.
The Congress top leadership or what goes for it is convinced about protecting our present land area and improving economic conditions for the masses.Given the fact we have multiple identities,the Congress will sacrifice anything for political unity and development.
The rustic OBCs in many parts of India are ‘obstacles’ to ‘development’.They are being softened up.India is a soft state.What is the quality of Congress leadership-Sonia and Rahul have no roots,MMS-a refugee,Pranabda-contested an election for the first time recently.It is the big business and media houses who support Congress which has a way of getting things ‘done’.Reservations in IITs,IIMs,Parliament is small change for the powers that be.There is a huge labour force available-skilled,unskilled,professional,managerial,supervisory at the right price to run the industrial machine.
The Congress sees the whole thing as ‘maya. Political independence and freedom for commercial classes is its only aim.Yes others have freedom to pursue their vocations in this scheme of things and earn their just or not so just desserts.
Unfortunately,What or Where is the alternative?
I think the opposition of Lalu and Mulayam is a charade as well.These leaders are now a part of the elite like Deve Gowda,Karu,Baalu,Raja,Chandrababu Naidu,Maarans,Pawar,SM Krishna,Badal,Barnala,Abdullah.They have their share of swiss bank a/cs and investments.
The Yadavs will make their protest and then quietly accept the Bill.Maybe not this session,but soon enough.Why should they really care for goondas.Lalu and Mulayam are smooth operators and have a stake in development.
Yes, their opposition is for consumption for respective interest groups. However, this will be a rallying point for them in coming elections.
atleast someone gave a thought to the bill instead of blindly accepting it..as a woman i want to be treated equally not some kind of a separate species…we should realise that reservation has infact opened ground for discrimination where there was none before…for example,it is only due to caste based reservations in academic institutes that students know which student belongs to scheduled caste or obc or whatever and hostility crops up in their mind when the seat they slogged for goes to someone else with lower marks..im not talking about the students in rural areas and have no access to proper coaching and educational facilities but all of us do know that there are people who take advantage of the system….and the last thing we need is hostility against women,specially in an era where women are working hard to gain their rightful position alongside men…
Thank you. Sorry I can not write more. I have to go to market urgently to buy some brains for the rest 186 (up there)!!
RC,
Based on the attack of a lone secular zombie, do you think even the staunch believers are gradually becoming disillusioned? I mean, the bugger really took his time, his comments exceed the total length of all your posts on the subject. I think in their heart they still want to go with it, but in their minds they are becoming increasingly conflicted about supporting harebrained policies of Cong.
The liberal sprinkling of the word “MCP” leads me to believe it is a girl who is convinced this bill demonstrates power of women activism.
Strictly from a male standpoint, the initial honeymoon period (before sub quota) is dangerous. Many lunatic bills pushed by ppl like Renuka Choudhary can become law (eg, jail time for verbal abuse, mental harassment). In an extreme case even staring (white noise project) which is a big deal among the left lib elite women.
The Congress party still banks on Nehru-Gandhi family. I actually liked it when Sonia”ji” said the long term vision is important, it later became a spoilsport to me when she mentioned it being Rajeev’s dream.
I am interested in how the reservation issue plays out in the yadav parties.The honchos are divided by their new found elite status and their obligation to vested interests without whom they are irrelevant.
In ‘true’ OBC style,they can opt for some face saving agitation and sub-quotas essentially ‘betraying’ the goondas, having accomplished ‘social justice’ for themselves and also vacating political space for Congress.
Or they stall the womens quotas all together.That will throw a spanner in Congress plans.
This would be the new fork in the road.And both the paths are not very edifying.
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