Opinion Have women been sidelined in parliamentary debates and decision-making?

Indian Express

25-04-2025

One of the major achievements of the NDA government has been the passage of the 106th Constitutional Amendment Act, also known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, promising one-third reservation for women in both the Parliament and the state assemblies. Political parties often flaunt the number of women MPs, MLAs and local leaders, citing it as a measure of progress. However, true representation lies not only in occupying seats but also in shaping debates, leading committees, and influencing decisions. Our analysis of recent parliamentary activity, particularly in the 18th Lok Sabha, reveals a gap between presence and participation. The conversation on women's representation cannot end at numbers, it must be measured through the hours of their active participation.
Participation of women MPs in legislative debates
The Lok Sabha debate on the Waqf Bill, 2025, lasted nearly 14 hours, with 61 members participating. Of these, only five were women, making up just 8 per cent of the total speakers. In terms of time taken, the disparity was even more pronounced. Women MPs spoke for a combined total of only 32 minutes, amounting to just 3.5 per cent of the overall speaking time. This is notably lower than their 14 per cent representation in the House.
The pattern becomes further clear when one looks at the party-wise data. The BJP, which has 31 women MPs, received a total of 145 minutes during the debate. But two women speakers of the party got only 14 minutes. The Congress, with 14 women MPs, was allotted 92 minutes, of which the only woman speaker got 4.5 minutes. Even when women are included in the list of speakers, the length of their speech is very short in comparison to their men counterparts.
The Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, was discussed in the Lok Sabha on December 3, with the debate continuing for nearly five hours. Despite the significance of the legislation, only one woman MP, Supriya Sule, participated. She spoke for about nine minutes. Both the BJP and Congress, which have a considerable number of women MPs, chose to field only male members for this discussion.
In a society that often stereotypes women as lacking financial acumen, parliamentary debates on the Union Budget provide a revealing perspective. While the BJP frequently highlights the fact that its finance minister is a woman, it is striking that no woman MP from the party spoke during the discussion on the Finance Bill, 2025. However, senior women leaders like Supriya Sule, Iqra Choudhary, and Harsimrat Kaur Badal contributed to the discussion. Collectively, all the women spoke for approximately one hour in a discussion that lasted for 8 hours and 43 minutes.
A similar trend emerged during the debate on the demand for grants for the Railway Ministry in the Lok Sabha. Out of the 90 MPs who participated, only 10 per cent — 9 MPs — were women. They spoke for about 1 hour and 18 minutes in a discussion lasting 11 hours and 35 minutes in total.
These numbers reveal a persistent structural bias. Barring a few parties, most don't give adequate speaking time to their women MPs.
Use of parliamentary tools by women MPs
Another key measure of women's participation in Parliament is the number of parliamentary interventions they file that are subsequently balloted. One of the most frequently used parliamentary interventions is the Question Hour. An analysis of the fourth session of the 18th Lok Sabha revealed that women MPs asked 17.2 per cent of the total starred questions. However, many of these inquiries were made in collaboration with other MPs, implying that only 7.5 per cent of the questions were asked independently by women MPs.
Another crucial parliamentary intervention is bringing in Private Members' Bills. Out of a total of 628 bills filed by MPs for introduction, a striking 572 bills — over 90 per cent of the total — were filed by male MPs, leaving women with merely 56 bills, accounting for just 8.91 per cent of the total.
Gender gap in Parliamentary Committees
Even within the committees, women remain noticeably absent from leadership roles. Out of the 24 department-related Standing Committees, only two are currently chaired by women. The trend is similar in Joint Parliamentary Committees (JPCs), where even the most high-profile ones are led exclusively by men. The JPC on One Nation One Election is chaired by P P Chaudhary, and the JPC on the Waqf Act was chaired by Jagdambika Pal.
Similarly, the JPCs on the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill, 2021, was chaired by Sanjay Jaiswal, the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2022, again by Chaudhary, and the Multi-State Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022, by Chandra Prakash Joshi. All male MPs seem to be leading critical legislative deliberations.
The absence of women is even more glaring in the three key finance committees: Public Accounts, Estimates, and Public Undertakings. In the last 16 years, not a single woman MP has chaired either the Public Accounts Committee or the Estimates Committee. Only one woman, Meenakshi Lekhi, has chaired the Public Undertakings Committee, and that too, just for a three-year term. This sustained absence from the most influential bodies points to the fact that women are routinely excluded from positions of institutional authority, even when they are present in the system.
The role of women in politics remains an area of deep concern. Objectionable remarks targeting women are frequently made during political rallies and even during parliamentary debates. Moreover, infrastructure within parliamentary spaces has historically overlooked the needs of women. The older Parliament building lacked separate washrooms for women journalists. It wasn't until 2018 that a dedicated feeding room was established. Persistence of such gendered challenges further limits the parliamentary potential of women. It is only through intentional reform that we can hope to create a more inclusive and equitable political environment for women.