AIMRAW voices protest against Women Reservation Bill

Press Release

Sub: Announcing severe protest against mutilation of the Indian Constitution in the name of Women Empowerment.

About AIMRAW:

Association for International Men’s Rights Activism and Welfare (AIMRAW) is the first ever international conglomerate of men’s rights activists all over the world. This organization intends to create massive awareness about men’s issues all over the world and vouch for men’s rights in all areas of life. AIMRAW aims to create “Affiliate Chapters” to spread its awareness. AIMRAW is in touch with men’s rights activists from 60 countries all over the world, including India. The Indian Affiliate Chapter of AIMRAW is in Bangalore, India.

The Indian Affiliate Chapter of AIMRAW is conducting this press conference in order to voice its protest against the proposed implementation of the proposed 81^st Constitutional Amendment popularly known as the Women’s Reservation Bill. Terming it as the next big step of “Women Empowerment”, this amendment calls for reserving one-third of Lok Sabha Constituencies for women on a rotating basis once in three years per Constituency.

Notwithstanding the political Tsunami to be brought about by the passage and implementation of this “Constitutional Amendment”, AIMRAW’s Indian Affiliate Chapter strongly objects to the infringement of Constitutional Rights conferred to men in India as explained below :-

Reserving the constituencies for women as enshrined in the proposed Constitutional Amendment will lead to,

1. Infringement on choice of citizens to elect their representative.
2. Infringement on choice of men to contest elections (either as a political party member or an independent) in their own constituency.

The above two infringements are severely unconstitutional and undemocratic in nature and are politically aimed at subverting democracy in India. The latest attempt in this direction has been by Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance and Jayanti Natarajan, Congress spokesperson as the Parliamentary Standing Committee for the Bill, tabled the report on the 17^th Dec 2009 in both the Houses of the Parliament.

Although, the Congress party has been spearheading the enactment of the bill, having tabled it twice in two consecutive winter sessions of the Parliament, if one goes by the available data, there is a severe lack of integrity on part of Congress and other political parties as far as the issue of the “Women Reservation Bill” is concerned.

In the recent Lok Sabha elections, out of the 443 candidates declared by the Congress, the party pitched only 40 women candidates (less than 10%). Opposition BJP fielded only 43 women candidates out of the total 427 seats. Left parties, shouting at the top of its lungs about the cause of women reservation, had the worst record of women representation in their list of candidates with only 5% of the tickets being given to women candidates for the 15th Lok Sabha elections. While, the CPM only fielded 4 women candidates out of the 80 declared seats, the CPI gave only 3 women candidates out of the 45 seats it was contesting. While Samajwadi Party fielded a mere 6 candidates out of its 75 candidates in UP, Lalu Yadav-led RJD gave a mere 2 seats to women in its quota of 28 seats in Bihar.(Source: www.indian-elections.com)

So, the Congress Govt., controlled by Sonia Gandhi, failed to field even 100 female candidates. It’s difficult to believe that a more than 100 year old political party does not have 100 worthy female leaders to contest parliamentary elections. The truth is that the older male politicians are not ready to give up their seats for females. Even Sonia Gandhi was powerless in front of these old politicians. She cannot risk a major revolt in Congress party, if she had fielded women in 30% of parliamentary seats.

So, just because of the stubborn behavior of old male politicians, Sonia Gandhi and Jayanti Natarajan are thinking of amending the Constitution of India, an amendment which will ultimately trample upon the Constitutional rights of ordinary men merely because of their gender. If Sonia Gandhi can’t take risks of fielding 100 female candidates in elections, then why should the citizens take a risk of having a mutilated constitution?

Furthermore, the data from the last General Elections of 2009 shows that, “1 out of 12 women candidates won vis-à-vis 1 out of 15 men candidates”. This simply means that the winning ratio for women was 25% higher than men. The electorates of India have shown far more confidence in women candidates than the political parties.

If Sonia Gandhi and other politicians lack integrity, then why should the citizens pay the price by giving up their choice to contest elections in their own Constituencies? It is analogous to performing a by-pass surgery for piles only because a heart surgeon is available. The Indian Chapter of AIMRAW strongly objects to the proposed Constitutional Amendment in the 81^st Constitutional Bill 2008 (popularly known as “Women Reservation Bill”) which will quintessentially be discriminatory against men and will stop them from contesting elections in their own constituencies merely because they are men.

We have neither stopped Kiran Majumdar Shaw, or Kiran Bedi or Sudha Murthy or Uma Bharati or for that matter, any woman candidate from contesting elections nor raised an issue about political parties allowing them to contest. However, with this Constitutional amendment, we see that now men are being asked NOT TO CONTEST elections in their own constituency merely because they are men. And hence, AIMRAW strongly objects to reserving constituencies via a Constitutional Amendment.

The Indian Chapter of AIMRAW strongly feels that due to the existing hatred against men, genuine problems of men are trivialized and the negative projection of men adds to it. Skyrocketing expectations from men, lack of freedom of choices in their life, nose-diving acceptance levels for them, accelerating suicide rate of men, constantly growing unemployment rate for men, complete absence of communication channels for them have already reduced men in the society to second class citizens. Now, in such a situation, if this Constitutional Amendment is allowed to go through, then men will be officially declared as “Second class citizens” and this is not acceptable to AIMRAW.

Whereas, the real problem lies with the inability of the old male politicians to give up their power positions and allow equal representation of women in the state and the parliamentary legislative assemblies. And instead of making attempts to solve that, the Govt. is making yet another attempt to discriminate against ordinary men giving into the pressure tactics of gender obsessed radical feminist groups; this is nothing but a broad daylight murder of democracy to which AIMRAW voices strong opposition.

Thanks and Regards

Public Relations Officer
Indian Affiliate Chapter, Bangalore,
Association of International Men’s Rights Activism and Welfare