Volume : 6, Issue : 1, January - 2017
An analysis of participation of women in politics: A case study of the State of Jammu and Kashmir
Mohmad Muzaffar Khan, Malik Zahra Khalid, Aaliya Ahmed
Abstract :
<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The idea of a democratic nation- state is impossible with out an active participation of women, which form the half of world’s population.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The highest law making bodies in parliamentary democracies are the legislatures, delegated by people to form laws for modern nation states.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">An ideal legislature should comprise of men and women in equal numbers.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">However, the reality on ground is different.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The global average of women in parliaments as of November 2013 stood at 21.3%.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">As far as India is concerned, the situation is also not pleasing in this regard.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Women in India have a poor 11% representation in Lok Sabha and and 10.6% in Rajya Sabha making India 108</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: justify;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> among 188 countries covered in the annual analysis on the statistics of women members of parliament, conducted by inter-parliamentary union (IPU).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Although the sixteenth Lok Sabha, elected in 2014, has record 61 women members in Lok Sabha as compared to 59 women MPs of the earlier</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">elected lower house.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The number of women in present-day parliament is better than previous Lok Sabha, but the numbers are not substantial and proportionate to women population of India.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The makeup of incumbent J&K legislative assembly, as far as representation of women is concerned is also unsatisfactory.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The elected members of J&K legislative assembly stand at 87, out of which only two are women.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">Observing the inadequate representation of women in the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly honorable governor nominated two women representatives to the legislative assembly of Jammu and Kashmir.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">This paper analyzes the representation of women in the legislative assembly of Jammu and Kashmir over various decades by the survey method.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">The paper also throws light on the role of women in the history of Kashmir politics by historical research method.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">This paper also highlights the sense that true development of a modern day nation state is impossible and charred without the active participation of women in politics.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
Keywords :
Cite This Article:
Mohmad Muzaffar Khan, Malik Zahra Khalid, Aaliya Ahmed, An analysis of participation of women in politics: A case study of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, GLOBAL JOURNAL FOR RESEARCH ANALYSIS : Volume-6, Issue-1, January‾2017