The participation of women in politics in India is deeply paradoxical. While women turnout in elections has significantly increased in the past few elections, and while women make a majority of elected members of local democratic voters, their representation in the Lok Sabha and State assemblies remains abysmally low. The trends from recent elections and current state of nominations suggest that women voters are becoming pivotal to electoral outcomes; a change that has forced political parties to consider women as a distinct group of voters. The growth of women participation in the political sphere has however not translated into improved inclusion by political parties.
The panel will discuss the emerging contours of women politics in the run-up to the 2019 elections and the reasons why most parties remain so impermeable to gender parity.
About the Series
The CPR-TCPD Dialogues on Indian Politics is a monthly event that brings together academicians, policy and political practitioners, and civil society actors to grapple with important social and political issues in India. It provides a forum for intellectually rigorous, non-partisan commentary to strengthen public discourse on politics in India. In these polarised times, debates on politics in India have tended to be increasingly noisy, blurring the lines between critical engagement and partisan endorsement. This dialogue series is an effort to carve out a space for critical, nuanced engagement to understand the changing dynamics of Indian political parties, the impact of new and emerging social movements and the use of new instruments of mobilisation in our polity.
The CPR-TCPD Dialogues is curated by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD) at Ashoka University. Founded in 1973, CPR is one of India’s leading think tanks, providing rigorous policy research on a variety of issues. Founded in 2015, TCPD is among India’s most well-respected institutions working with political data, providing data-driven research, policy work and journalism on India’s political life by producing and disseminating in open access scientifically collected and treated political data. The CPR-TCPD Dialogues leverages the unique strengths of these two institutions to provide rigorous and innovative commentary on India’s social and political challenges.
Please RSVP at president.cpr@cprindia.org.
