Women’s Quota Quagmire In India: Latin America Shows The Way

Politics in India was once a stern moral drama. Today, it has become a ribald vaudeville, full of scandal and pantomime. Politics was always a game. Now it has become an ugly game and a soap opera. Media constructs have become crucial for success. The barrier between gamers and politicians has collapsed.

As George Orwell had predicted, India has descended into an age in which two plus two makes five if the lider maximo so says. The delimitation gamble was a “paradigm dressed in epic”. The government thought it had the wind at its back and, hence, could get the bill passed. In the end, it turned out to be the pantomime of the absurd. Thanks to the adroit use of social media, the poison tree, the BJP government has honed the skill to distract, isolate, inveigle and anaesthetise the people on several of its controversial decisions, including demonetisation, its handling of Covid, and the abrogation of Article 370.

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A large number of people have become victims of pious claptrap, lapping up loopy ideas. Citizens are seen as conscripted soldiers and petitioners, not partners. The government has sought to make a complete merger of the nation with the state. It seeks to win dazzled admiration through new-fangled PR stunts.

The curated reality creates a distorted view of things. Filters, editing, and selective sharing create an illusion, and the gap between appearance and reality grows wider. The Modi government sought to get the delimitation bill passed in Parliament clothed in women’s quota attire. It is only itself to blame for its failure to bulldoze delimitation through the backdoor. The government has lost the plot. There are few takers for the weird logic: women’s quota isn’t fine in the 543-member parliament; it is fine if Lok Sabha has 850 members.

There is a lot to learn from Latin America when it comes to women’s representation in parliament. The region has exemplified a promising model in the field of women’s political empowerment. There is strong empirical evidence to suggest that money in the hands of the mother increases expenditure on children.

The credit for the success of Brazil’s conditional cash transfer programme, Bolsa familia, goes to women. It rewards families for sending their children to school and taking them for regular health check-ups. It has significantly improved women’s earnings.

Today, five of the 10 countries in the world, in terms of highest representation in parliament, are from Latin America—Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Mexico. In 2025, Mexico achieved gender parity in both chambers of parliament.

Long dismissed as a macho society, Latin America is, today, at the forefront of gender representation. In comparison, women hold only 29 per cent of the House of Representatives and 26 per cent of the American Senate. Today, Latin America has the highest percentage of women members in parliament (36.8 per cent), which is 10 percentage points higher than the global average.

Way back in 1991, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to institutionalise the world’s first national legislative gender quota, a year before India introduced gender quotas in local governments. In the 1990s, electoral reforms in Mexico required parties to nominate at least 30 per cent of women candidates for parliament. In 2014, constitutional changes mandated gender parity in the nomination of candidates.

In 2018, Mexico introduced a groundbreaking constitutional reform. It was called “parity in everything”, whereby all top elected posts in the executive and judiciary were covered by it. Mexico has become the only country in the world to follow parity at the federal and provincial levels.

Mexico also follows a feminist foreign policy and is among the three countries in the world, including Sweden and Norway, to follow such a policy. How have Latin American countries made so much progress in empowering women where India is faltering? Women, including indigenous women, have participated majorly in all social movements. They were also at the forefront of mass movements against military dictatorships.

In the areas of women’s empowerment and advancement of gender rights, the region has made notable advances. The UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women has been ratified by every country of Latin America. Most countries have approved laws promoting gender equality. Latin America has also witnessed several feminist movements like “Primavera Feminista”, “Ni Una Menos”, and “Pimp My Carroca”, demanding reproductive rights and bringing attention to the issue of domestic abuse.

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The feminist movements in Latin America have exemplified a model, “from protests to power”. It can be a template for enhancing women’s quota in India. Chile’s Mujeres por la Vida (Women for Life), International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women, and other movements in support of women’s reproductive rights gave strength to the quota demand.

In 2018, millions of women across Latin America marched to protect their reproductive rights, which came to be known as la marea verde (the Green Tide). In the following year, a song, Un violador en tu camino (The rapist is you), shifted the blame away from victims of sexual violence. The quota success is the result of their sustained campaigns combining street demonstrations, constitutional challenges, and global solidarity.

A women’s quota through a fast track goes a long way in making politics more representative and inclusive. It goes a long way in eroding the gendered hierarchies of power.

India lost the advantages of empowering women in local governments through constitutional amendments way back in the early 1990s. Women’s empowerment is about changing the way the world perceives their strength. As Tony Morrison says, “If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.” The Modi government’s dilly-dallying on women’s empowerment will be seen as surrendering to patriarchy.

There is an old African proverb that says, “Until the lions have their own historians, histories of the hunt will glorify the hunter.” Since the BJP has chosen to glorify the hunter, women are left with only one option: be their own historians.

The author comments on global affairs.

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