The women’s reservation debate in India did not start in 2023 with the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam but has been a continuous dialogue going back to the national movement. In 1931, Begum Shah Nawaz and Sarojini Naidu wrote a letter to the British PM in which they said, “To seek any form of preferential treatment would be to violate the integrity of the universal demand of Indian women for absolute equality of political status.” They were clear that they did not seek preferential treatment. Similarly, in 1947, freedom fighter Renuka Ray said, “We always held that when the men who have fought and struggled for their country’s freedom came to power, the rights and liberties of women, too, would be guaranteed…” Women’s reservation was raised in the Constituent Assembly debates but was deemed unnecessary, as women and men were to have equal rights as Indian citizens.

In the following decades, however, it became clear that the space for women had shrunk. In 1951, only 5 per cent of MPs elected were women, and in 2024, it was still a mere 14 per cent.

As a consequence, women’s reservation has become a recurrent theme in policy debates. The Committee on the Status of Women in India (CSWI), established in 1971 by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare and headed by Phulrenu Guha, was tasked with evaluating women’s rights and social status. Its landmark 1974 report, ‘Towards Equality’, revealed........

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