Women's political empowerment will enhance governance and boost the economy

livemint.com:

India’s electoral landscape is set for a transformative gender shift. A gender gap in voter turnout still exists, although it has reduced considerably since the early years of Indian democracy.

Given the current trend of increasing women’s participation in polls, projections by Soumya Kanti Ghosh and Anurag Chandra of SBI (bit.ly/3u5oGPH) show that women’s voter turnout would exceed that of men by 2029 and reach 55% of the total by 2047. Five recent state elections saw well above 70% of eligible women voting.

Rural gains stood out. Many social researchers specifically link these gains to India’s 33% reservation of seats in local representative bodies, as well as grassroots self-help group movements.

Some attribute it to the influence of development schemes that “recognize women’s agency." However, a women’s rights activist rued that “despite being a significant mass, the importance accorded to women is transactional"—i.e., a “your-vote-for-my-scheme approach." Other researchers have opined that women are yet to emerge as a “distinct voting bloc for any particular party." As for an observed spike in rural women voters, a political economist views it through the “prism of economic conditions": hence, “in the post-covid era, men got back to working in bigger cities, but a large number of women didn’t, and thus, it is the absence of men who can vote in their homes." Despite Indian women’s better balanced share of the political franchise, various institutional and structural challenges stand in their way to the electoral battlefield. Apart from an ‘internalised patriarchy’ that restricts engagement in a full-fledged political career, political parties often fight shy of fielding a fair share of women as contestants.