A Quota Within the Quota — Will It Help the Woman Who Carries Bricks and Ploughs Fields?

When the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam (Women’s Reservation Bill) was introduced in Parliament, a fierce new debate erupted across the entire country—‘a quota within the quota’ (Quota within Quota).

Opposition parties and thinkers advocating for social justice raised the question that while this 33% women’s reservation provides seats for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in proportion to the existing constitutionally mandated reservations, why has no separate sub-quota been provided for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and minority women?

This question strikes at the very heart of the multi-layered inequalities of Indian society.

For in India, ‘woman’ is not a uniform, homogeneous category. One woman is the sort who sits in Delhi’s Khan Market wearing designer clothes worth lakhs, has studied abroad, and delivers lectures on feminism in English. And the other woman is one who carries a pan of wet mortar on her head in the scorching afternoon heat of Bundelkhand, or toils bent double for twelve hours in a paddy field to earn a daily wage of a hundred rupees.

Can the struggles, the hardships, and the opportunities of reaching Parliament ever be the same for these two women? Never!

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The Social Reality: The Logical Necessity of a Quota Within the Quota

If women’s reservation is left open without any internal balance, what will be its consequences?

1. The Monopoly of Elite Women: The bitter truth of Indian politics is that contesting elections today has become a game of crores of rupees. In such a scenario, parties will give tickets only to that woman who possesses family wealth, the backing of the English media, and an elite social network.
2. The Double Blow on Women from Oppressed Classes: Dalit, Most Backward, and Pasmanda (backward-caste) Muslim women have suffered double exploitation for centuries—first, the exploitation of patriarchy by virtue of being a woman, and second, the exploitation of social and economic discrimination by virtue of being born into a lower caste. If there is no separate window for them in Parliament, they will never be able to climb the steps of Parliament.
3. The Experience of Local Bodies: It has been observed in panchayats (village councils) that wherever there was no reservation for OBCs or SCs, almost all the seats were captured by women from the dominant and upper-caste families of the village.

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The Sub-Quota Controversy: Key Arguments from Both Sides

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The Bitter Truth from the Book: N. Singh’s Balanced and Fearless Perspective

The author, N. Singh, exposing the hypocrisy of both sides on this deeply sensitive issue in the chapter ‘A Quota Within the Quota’ of his book ‘Ginti Se Satta Tak’ (From Headcount to Power), writes:

“If the most backward and oppressed women do not receive separate protection within the women’s reservation, then the 33% seats in Parliament will be captured solely by upper-class, English-speaking, and corporate-elite women from the metropolises. But alongside this, another bitter truth is that the very leaders who have been tearing up copies of the bill in the name of a ‘quota within the quota’—how many poor and extremely backward women have been given organisational posts or tickets in their own parties? When the time comes to distribute tickets in their own party, they merely push forward women from their own families! The demand for a sub-quota must be a cry for justice, not an excuse to shelve the bill forever.”
— N. Singh (Ginti Se Satta Tak, pp. 158-159)

The author further presents a deeply poignant observation:

“Be it an upper-caste woman or a backward-caste woman—until the mindset of men in society changes, both will continue to be exploited. The upper-caste woman is exploited in the drawing room in a sophisticated manner, and the poor backward-caste woman is exploited on the ridge of a field by the sheer force of a lathi. The pain is shared by both, but their pathways to Parliament are vastly different.”
— (Ginti Se Satta Tak, p. 162)

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A Practical and Just Solution

1. Proportional Sub-Categorisation: Just as proportional reservation has been provided for SC and ST women within the 33%, similarly, it should be made mandatory at the policy level for political parties to allocate at least 50% of their total women’s tickets to women from OBC and most backward classes.
2. First Preference on Economic Grounds: Even within the reserved quota, the first priority should be given to those women whose family’s annual income falls below the income-tax threshold, and who themselves work in agriculture or the unorganised sector.
3. Turning Women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs) into Political Nurseries: Over 10 crore women across the country are associated with self-help groups. These women handle micro-finance and rural development on the ground. Political parties should select their candidates from among the women leaders of these groups.

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A Question Worth Pondering (The Message of the Book)

Will the woman sitting in Parliament merely be the face of a privileged class, or will she become the voice of that labouring woman who waits for that day, the blisters on whose hands produce the country’s grain?

To understand these complex social equations, contradictions, and the road ahead within women’s reservation, every thinking citizen must read this chapter of N. Singh’s widely acclaimed book, ‘Ginti Se Satta Tak: Bharat Ka Ankaha Yuddh’ (From Headcount to Power: India’s Untold War).