Women’s Reservation Bill: A historic opportunity lost

Championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Women’s Reservation Bill aimed not only to empower women but also to restructure representation through delimitation. However, fierce opposition in the house  derailed the effort, raising serious questions about the future of women’s political participation in the country

On April 17, 2026, “a date which will live in infamy”, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, seeking to reservation of 33 per cent seats for women in an expanded Lok Sabha and State Assemblies and facilitate delimitation of constituencies, nosedived in the Lok Sabha and crashed even before taking off into self-sustained growth. Of the 528 members present in the House, 298 voted in favour of the Bill and 230 opposed it, resulting in the Bill failing to clear the decisive hurdle of attaining the two-thirds majority (popularly termed as the “special majority”) required for a Constitutional Amendment Bill to clear the House, in terms of the affirmative procedure mandated by Article 368 of the Constitution of India. Our most respected and revered Prime Minister Narendra Modi, valiantly leading the charge of the government, had sought to allay a lurking fear of the Opposition parties regarding inequitable representation of Southern States and had personally guaranteed that no injustice would be done to the southern states with the increase in seats in the Lok Sabha. Modi had thundered in ringing tones on the floor of the Lok Sabha, “Let all of us not miss this important opportunity to give reservation to women. I have come to appeal to you - do not see this from a political lens, this is in the national interest”. The Union Home Minister Amit Shah (affectionately known as “Mota Bhai”), in his characteristic style, had also assured the House that the current representation of southern states would be preserved, or increased marginally, once the seats in the Lok Sabha were increased from the current 543 to roughly 816.

Yet, the Bill, despite its avowed merits, faced a wholly unjustified defeat because of the machinations of the opposition parties led by Rahul Gandhi, resplendent in his signature white T shirt, whose  grasp of and commitment to the Constitution (his great grandfather, the versatile Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, was one of the principal architects of the Constitution and authored the pivotal “Objectives Resolution” on 13th December, 1946, which laid the philosophical foundation of the Constitution, and chaired key committees like the Union Constitution Committee!) leaves much to be desired and has yet to pass the acid test. It is indeed a lamentable travesty of fate that Rahul Gandhi is the great grandson of the brave and resilient first and only Lady Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi who was aptly hailed as “Maa Durga” by the prodigious former Prime Minister of India Atal Behari Vajpayee in the very same Lok Sabha after India’s spectacular victory over Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War as well as the formidable Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thakeray in an interview published in the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Samana on 19th October, 2011.

In his lacklustre speech, full of polemics but shorn of substance and conviction, Rahul fondly remembered his “Dadi”, but conveniently strayed away from the very subject matter of an important constitutional debate and raised wholly extraneous, frivolous and irrelevant pleas. Rahul ranted, “There is a hidden power, massive, extremely strong, but completely hidden. And that power, that force, that doesn’t show itself, but is there, knows the entire history of the magician, it knows every single detail about the magician from when he first came into politics, till when he arrived as Prime Minister. The truth is, the magician has been caught. The magician of Balakot, the magician of Demonetisation, the magician of Sindoor has suddenly got caught, why?…

what happened was, the last session of Parliament completely destroyed the structure because a deal was signed with the United States that under no circumstances would have been signed by any Prime Minister of this country, unless he was compromised.” Reprehensively, apart from ridiculing, disparaging and denigrating Modi sarcastically as a “magician” and mockingly assailing the Indo-US trade deal (apparently blissfully ignorant of the fact that Nehru had fostered a warm and cordial “Nehru-Kennedy spirit” and the US had promptly come to the aid of an embattled and encircled India after the Chinese Dragon (with whom the Gandhis have dishonourably struck a secret pact!) tossed the 1955 Bandung Declaration aside, treacherously stabbed Nehru in the back and unleashed upon India a devastating war on 20th October,1962, and induced China to declare a unilateral ceasefire on 21st November, 1962 and cede considerable territory it had forcibly captured in Arunachal Pradesh!), Rahul has unpatriotically roped in our brave armed forces into the debate and has sought to portray them in a very poor light by raising the spectre of Balakot and Sindoor! Surprisingly, even an astute, enlightened and erudite parliamentarian like the charismatic Shashi Tharoor, who is known as an indefatigable feminist and who is feted, admired and adored by women the world over virtually a la the Italian born actor and dancer Rudolf Valentino (popularly known as the “The Sheik of Araby”), scrupulously chose to tow his party line virtually throwing all his lofty ideals about women’s rights and empowerment literally to the wind! The hopes and dreams of over 60 crore Indian women have been rudely dashed to the ground, and the just and worthy cause of greater parliamentary representation for women has been consigned to the freezer locker of history!

In a powerful, hard hitting special televised address to the nation at 8.30 pm on 18th April, 2026, Modi, said, “Today, every citizen of India can see how the rise of women’s power has been halted and how their dreams have been brutally crushed. Despite our best efforts, we could not succeed. The Women’s Reservation Bill could not be amended, and for this, I sincerely apologize to all mothers and sisters.” He then launched an all-out scathing attack on the opposition saying that the opposition had committed “bhroon hatya” (“female foeticide”) of this honest endeavour by defeating the women’s quota bill. He further went on to assert without mincing words, “What happened in Parliament was not just desk thumping, but an attack on the dignity and self-respect of women. A woman may forget many things, but she never forgets her insult. The conduct of the Congress and its allies in Parliament will remain in the minds of women across the country.”

Retracing the pages of our chequered history, Swami Vivekananda, a staunch advocate of the cause of women, had proudly proclaimed on  on 21st January,1895, “Our God is both personal and absolute, the absolute is male, the personal, female. And thus it comes that we now say: ‘The first manifestation of God is the hand that rocks the cradle.’” Again, in May, 1896, he had asserted, “There is no chance of the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on one wing.” Likewise, Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, was a firm believer in women’s empowerment. He had remarked at the All India Women’s Conference on 23rd December, 1936, “When a woman, whom we call abala becomes sabala, all those who are helpless will become powerful.” We are indeed proud of our women parliamentarians and the names of some of them like Radhabai Subbarayan, Rukmini Devi Arundale, Anne Mascarene, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Vijaya Raje Scindia, Sucheta Kripalani, Sheila Dikshit, Sushma Swaraj and Geeta Mukherjee, read like a veritable roll of honour in the glorious saga of Indian politics.

I am highly emboldened to conclude with the invigorating words of our national poet and Nobel laureate, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, “For we women are not only the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul itself.”

The hopes and dreams of over 60 crore Indian women have been rudely dashed to the ground and the just and worthy cause of greater parliamentary representation for women has been consigned to the freezer locker of history!

The writer is an internationally reputed senior lawyer practising in the Supreme Court of India and various High Courts and Tribunals in India; Views presented are personal.