When will they rise?

Karnataka has always been at the forefront of democratic and legislative reforms regarding women’s participation in democracy. It was the first state in India to implement the Panchayat Raj system in 1987 with three-tier governance — Gram Panchayat, Taluk Panchayat, Zilla Panchayat. It earmarked 25% reservation for women even before the 73rd and 74th amendments, which mandated 33% reservation for women in 1993. Years of successful implementation of such reforms at the ground level have not yielded expected gender equality at state and national level politics. We explore the intricacies that are hampering women’s active role in politics in Karnataka.

Women were an active part of the freedom struggle in Karnataka. Gowramma Venkata Ramaiah was much appreciated for her leadership abilities by Gandhiji during the no-tax movement in 1930. Yashodhara Dasappa and Sunandamma were prominent leaders who set up the iconic Shivapura Dhwaja Satyagraha in 1938. Uma Bai Kundapur and Kamala Devi Chattopadhyaya, along with many other women, travelled across Karnataka to gather support for the national movement. The active participation of women freedom fighters has been forgotten and their involvement was not carried forward into electoral politics.

The average proportion of women MLAs in Karnataka between 1957 and 2018 is a meagre 2.84%, whereas the female population in the state has always been close to 49%. The Mysore state assembly had 8.6% women MLAs in 1962, it is down to 3.1% in the Karnataka state assembly of 2018. Assembly election tickets allotted to women this year by Congress, BJP and JDS were 5.3%, 3.5% and 2.7%, respectively, of their total tickets. Only seven women won, and actor-politician Jayamala is the only minister in the cabinet.

In numerous governments, prominent women legislators like Motamma, Umashree and Jayamala now have been restricted to traditional portfolios like Women and Child Development ministry or Kannada and Culture department. No woman minister until now has held important portfolios like Home, Revenue and Finance ministries in the state cabinet. KS Nagarathanamma still remains the only female Speaker (1972 to 1978) of the Karnataka Assembly. It must be noted that Karnataka has not seen a woman chief minister yet, but the larger inference is that women have not had numbers or influence on their side within their own parties. As a result, women have a hard time convincing party leaders to provide them tickets to contest in elections.

With respect to representation in Lok Sabha, Karnataka (and Mysore state) women virtually had no representation until 1977. Only in 1977, Karnataka saw its first female Lok Sabha member in Mahishi Sarojini Bindurao (Dharwad Central). Since then, only 15 women have represented Karnataka as MPs whereas 301 male MPs have been elected in the same period.

There are certain common threads that run among the few successful female politicians who have been elected from Karnataka to the Lok Sabha. The first factor is the social and political capital passed on to women in the family by a male politician. Women from the Nehru family, both Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi sought their political revival by contesting from Karnataka. Indira Gandhi contested and won from Chikkamagaluru in 1978 and Sonia Gandhi from Bellary in 1999.

After Indira Gandhi, fellow Congressman Siddhartha Reddy’s wife DK Taradevi contested from the same Chikkamagaluru constituency and won in 1984 and 1991. Later, Chandra Prabha Urs, daughter of former chief minister Devraj Urs registered a win in Hunsur constituency in the 1983 assembly election and in Mysore Lok Sabha seat in the 1991 elections. In 1999, Margaret Alva won the Canara constituency. Margaret Alva is the daughter-in-law of Joachim Alva and Violet Alva, both of whom were parliamentarians. In 2004, Manorama Madhwaraj won the MP election from Udupi, a region from which the Madhwaraj family has fielded as many as three members in 11 elections out of the 13 held since 1962. In 2009, BJP leader B. Sreeramulu’s sister J Shanta won from Bellary.

Actor-politician Ramya, who won the bypoll from Mandya in 2013, credited her foster father RT Narayan, who was an ardent Congressman, for her foray into politics. It may not be wholly correct to say that these women were given tickets and won only due to familial ties but having a family base in politics has remained a decisive advantage for women in Karnataka politics.

Another common theme is that female politicians elected from Karnataka have had consistent displeasure with their own party on how they have been treated. This led many female MPs to change parties. Legislator Basavarajeshwari quit Congress and joined BJP in 1996 when she was denied a ticket even after her hat-trick wins in Bellary constituency. DK Taradevi and her husband Siddharth Reddy quit Congress in 1998 alleging that Congressmen had created a ‘vicious circle’ inside party rungs. Taradevi then joined BJP and moved on to JD(S) in 2004. Margaret Alva had expressed displeasure about the process of issuing tickets in Congress. Alva was soon relieved of all important responsibilities in the party and was sent to the newly formed state of Uttarakhand to be its first governor. Similarly, after being sidelined in party affairs, Tejaswini quit Congress in 2014 and joined BJP.

The third common thread is that none of the female leaders were successful in galvanising the women’s wings of their parties. Senior women leaders not wanting to share the limelight with other women has been a consistent trend across parties. The women’s wing of each of the political parties has been a mere formality and has no bargaining power within the party. The onus is on political parties to provide gender equality within their own party structure before delivering it in their policies.

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(Vijayamba is Research Scholar at Indian Statistical Institute, and Prajwal is Research Scholar at ISEC, Bengaluru)