Study On The Historical Evolution Of Indian Women’s Political Participation Since Independence

Before the independence, Indian women launched twice campaigns about voting right with the help from Britain friends that kicked off the beginning of Indian women to take part in politic progress. Since Indian independence, the government had enacted a series of laws to protect women’s rights, which laid the foundation for women’s political participation. Women actively participated in the voting of the Central and State Legislative Assembly in the fifties and sixties. However, during this period, the main feature of women in politics was elite political participation. Some women, Who are prestigious or get family support, were elected to the Central and State Legislative Assembly and government official. In the seventies and eighties,compared to the early independence, the level of women’s participation in national management showed a downward trend. In this period, in the impact of the second wave of the feminist movement in the world, the Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India and Indian domestic political environment, women’s political participation were a series of political protest movements. Against Shah Bano case, Sati, rape and dowry issues, women’s groups and individuals launched several protest movements and forced the state to adopt laws to protect women’s rights. Since the 1990 s, because of the impact of the women reservation tradition and the improved needs of local self-government bodies, the state enacted the 73 rd Amendment to the Constitution, which provided for 33% reservation of seats for women in Panchayati governance.Thus the level of grass-roots political participation of women had improved significantly, which began the India women’s public democratization process.Since independence, Indian democratic system has been stable development,but the domestic situation of women has attracted worldwide attention. Women’s political participation, both in terms of numbers and scope, is develop greatly.However, politics is still dominated by men, and women’s political participation is strictly limited. In a word, although the proportion of women occupy about 33% in local self-government, Indian women’s political participation is still low in the centraland local decision-making bodies. In addition, there are some differences of women’s political participation in the states. Politics, economy, education, family and gender discrimination still restrict women’s political participation.