The defeat of the trifecta of Bills in the Lok Sabha has already been disingenuously portrayed by the Treasury benches as a setback for Indian women. Let us be clear: The rejection was not a vote against women’s representation — a cause for which there is near-unanimous consensus across the aisle — but a decisive stand against a legislative Trojan Horse. Under the noble guise of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, the government attempted to smuggle in an ill-conceived delimitation exercise that would have fundamentally skewed the arithmetic of our Union and devastated our democracy. By tethering the long-overdue empowerment of women to the demographic volatility of a redrawing of boundaries, the government sought to use a moral imperative as a shield for a political land-grab.

There is no logical or constitutional reason why women cannot be granted their 33 per cent reservation today, based on our existing parliamentary strength. Instead, the government presented a “Buy One, Get One Free” offer that no self-respecting federalist could accept. The idea was just like the disastrous demonetisation – “pass in haste, repent at leisure”. To accept these Bills was to accept a “political demonetisation” that would have effectively disenfranchised states that have successfully implemented national goals of population control and human development; it would have rendered small states irrelevant and punished major contributors to the exchequer by rewarding economic excellence with political irrelevance. The Opposition has done the nation a favour by warding off such a catastrophe.

But we should be grateful to the government: Its over-reach offers us a providential opportunity to examine fundamental questions about the very design of our........

© Indian Express