Political Participation and Representation of Women in Indian Politics

Abstract

Women constitute half of the world population, but they are the largest excluded category in almost all respects. Women’s political participation has been recognized globally as an important measure to assess the status of women in any particular country. Their participation in political processes is important for strengthening democracy and for their struggle against marginalization, trivialization and oppression. Women’s equal partnership in power structure, decision making process, and political participation in greater degree is the pre-requisite of consolidation of democracy. Political participation of women is of enormous use for planners and policy makers which help them to evolve better schemes and programs. Women participation in national level politics brings viewpoints which are essential for a holistic development of the society. The quantitative data on women participation is easy to measure and India has a long history of recording gender statistics for political participation. The challenge is to measure the actual participation of women and to filter out the problem of proxy participation which may be prevalent at the grass root level. Efforts are being undertaken to devise measures which would give a true picture of women’s participation in national level politics.