Women’s quota: A fairer formula for consensus

The push for census-based delimitation has deepened regional divides, stalling a critical reform. There is a less contentious alternative, but can there be political agreement?

The defeat of the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill should lead to a search for alternatives to implement the idea of women’s reservation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. It opens up the space for proposals within the existing constitutional, legal, and political frameworks. Women’s reservation cannot be implemented in a Lok Sabha of the existing strength. If 181 seats – equivalent to one-third of the present 543 – are reserved for women, male members will have to forfeit many seats, without any control over the allotment process. Clearly, this is not a viable alternative.

Then, in sheer terms of numbers, the 33% reservation can be achieved only by raising the present strength to a minimum of 850 (815 from the states and 35 from the Union Territories), as proposed by the Union government, because only then can the existing strength of 543 – ironically, considered by default as male membership – would be protected. That leaves around 283 seats for women (33% of the total strength).

The dispute centres on how to distribute these 283 seats. The government linked women’s reservation to the census and delimitation of constituencies through constitutional amendments. Delimitation was first frozen by the 42nd Amendment in 1976 using the 1971 census figures, and the freeze was extended by the 84th Amendment in 2002 until the first census after 2026. The pause aimed to avoid penalising states that successfully controlled population growth – most of them in the South, the North-East, and the North-West – while benefiting the northern, Hindi-speaking states where population grew faster.

The government’s proposal to redistribute the 850 seats by increasing each state’s and UT’s share by 50% is flawed because it still disadvantages better-performing states. Karnataka would gain only 14 seats, while Uttar Pradesh would gain 40, further increasing North India’s dominance over the South in the Lok Sabha. This imbalance will fuel continued opposition to census-based delimitation and linking women’s reservation to it.

A better and more realistic alternative would be to distribute the 283 seats for women across the states, adding them to the present number of seats in each of the 28 states and eight UTs. But distributing these 283 seats equally among the states and UTs would create an abnormal situation where even states with one or two Lok Sabha seats are allotted about eight seats for women. A practical solution would be to separate the small states and UTs from the larger states and distribute women’s seats differently among them.

The numbers align

India has 23 states and UTs with less than 15 Lok Sabha constituencies, accounting for a total of 103 seats. Their seats can be doubled, with the additional seats going to women. For instance, Mizoram, which has one seat, can get an additional seat for women. Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, and Haryana, with 4, 5, 7, and 10 seats respectively, can have 8, 10, 14, and 20 seats, including the additional women’s seats. The remaining 180 seats can be equally distributed among the bigger states, each getting around 14 seats (this has been approximated to avoid a fraction. The total number of seats can be adjusted based on this; see table). The Lok Sabha seats in UP can increase from 80 to 94, and those in Karnataka from 28 to 42. Seats in Bihar can go up from 40 to 54, in Rajasthan from 25 to 39, in Tamil Nadu from 39 to 53, and in Kerala from 20 to 34.

When the number of seats is increased equally among states, the room for grievance becomes minimal. The Southern states may not have the grouse over the North securing a disproportionately higher number of seats, and in effect, greater political weightage. This addresses the concern over ‘Northern domination’, a key reason for opposition to the government’s legislative proposal. It freezes the balance of power between states, in terms of Lok Sabha seats, at the present level.

Reconfiguring Lok Sabha seats within states to reserve seats for women is more feasible because intra-state disparities are less severe than national ones. A neutral delimitation commission with fair rules would be essential. Women’s seats could also be allocated proportionally based on parties’ vote or seat shares, but this would be complex and disadvantage independent candidates.

This is a compromise formula. The Central government, state governments, and political parties should realise that delimitation based on the census, as it is understood now, is a divisive idea in a country with uneven demographic growth and sharply varied political cultures. It can deepen existing divisions and distrust, and even lead to civil strife. The government should be wise and realistic enough to see the dangers of such a move.

Linking women’s representation to the census and delimitation was unnecessary. If the goal is to ensure women’s reservation without reducing men’s representation, the formula presented here offers a better solution. It can also accommodate the demand to add seats after each census through political consensus, with one-third of the newly created seats reserved for women.

A democratic alternative

The principle of “one man, one vote, one value” is used to justify delimitation based on population, ensuring that the MPs represent roughly equal numbers of voters. Home Minister Amit Shah cited this to defend the census-delimitation link. Currently, representation is strikingly uneven: an MP from Gautam Buddha Nagar (NOIDA) in UP represents about 27 lakh voters, while one from Wayanad in Kerala represents around 14 lakh.

But the principle is not a constitutional mandate. Article 81, which deals with the composition of the House of the People, says in Clause 2 that “there shall be allotted to each State a number of seats in the House of the People in such manner that the ratio between that number and the population of the state is, so far as practicable, the same for all States.” This shows the principle is not mandatory. It should also be noted that the right to vote, which is relevant here, is a constitutional right, and not a fundamental right. The principle can only be considered an ideal and a goal, which is not as important as national unity or democratic consensus.

The principle originated in generally uniform democratic societies in the West and need not be considered essential in diverse societies with uneven political, economic, and social development, such as India. 

The 2023 legislation on women’s reservation, which the government has now notified, also provides for delimitation, based on the first census after it came into force: the ongoing 2026-27 enumeration. It will revive the issues raised in the Parliament, and the opposition to it is likely to be stronger, making a democratic, alternative solution imperative.

The formula proposed in this essay would strengthen the country’s federal balance as all states will find their parliamentary and political strength increase in equal measure, while the smaller states raise women’s representation to 50%. There are no legal or constitutional
obstacles to its implementation. It will need constitutional amendments, just as the government’s failed proposal did. What is needed is political will and a democratic consensus.

It might be argued that the division of states into small and big, based on a 14-seat cut-off, is arbitrary. But the argument faces a hard reality: population-based delimitation will not be acceptable to the non-Hindi states, especially the South Indian states. Note that the US Senate has an equal number of members from all states, regardless of their size. The proposal made here offers no exact parallel. It only argues that there are democratic means to circumvent the current deadlock and implement a reform too long in the making.

(The writer is a former associate editor and editorial advisor of Deccan Herald)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.