00:00Should I give up my take?
00:02All I want to say, the BJP is claiming victory in defeat by saying they have stood by women's reservation
00:08and exposed the opposition.
00:10The opposition counters it by saying that the BJP has weaponized women's reservation by using it to actually push for
00:17delimitation and alter the political map of the country to the BJP's advantage.
00:22Truth is, as someone who has tracked this issue for 30 years, including when the great late Gita Mukherjee first
00:28moved it, none of the parties, frankly, come into this with clean hands.
00:32At various stages, different parties have taken moves to stop women actually getting that 33% reservation.
00:41So amidst all these claims and counterclaim, my simple question remains, what is it that stops the census?
00:49What is it, for example, the question that I asked last night too, what stops the Modi government from pushing
00:55for one third reservation in the existing 543 member parliament by delinking reservation from delimitation?
01:03Simple. The truth is, the men don't want it. That is the truth.
01:08We are a patriarchal society. Our male MPs won't accept it.
01:12And if you wanted to link it to delimitation and as the government chose to do it or link it
01:19to the 2011 census or suddenly decide that we will give a 50% uniform rise, expansion of seats across
01:28states,
01:28shouldn't the government have called an all-party meeting ahead of such a crucial parliamentary session,
01:34met with all the stakeholders to ensure that all misgivings were cleared before this special session was called?
01:41Why this last-minute ad hocism, including a notification that was moved at 10 p.m. last night to ensure
01:49that the original 2023 bill, which is already law, was notified?
01:55The lesson, my friends, at the end of the day is this.
01:59Crucial contentious legislation cannot be bulldozed in a parliamentary democracy.
02:05It must be done with full sincerity by taking everyone along.
02:10Over the years, governments have failed to do so, which is why women's reservation has still not seen the reality.
02:20India's women, hankering for more representation, deserve better, much better.
02:26We need to end the patriarchal system that still dominates large sections of our political class.
02:35No one has really won or lost in that sense today.
02:39The women of India, they've just got to keep waiting, sadly.
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