When the debates about the assembly of the constituents took despite all the ideological and political differences between the leaders, there was unanimously unanimously that the right for women in India voted. Everyone believed that women had to be treated as the same political units. This was unusual in view of the history of the right to vote for women, especially in the west, which refused to grant women, although they were classified in the world against equality and democracy, the rights of women.
The battles for the right to vote were long and tedious and often extends over decades before women could hand over their ballot papers. In the United States it was the remarkable 19th amendment from 1920 that redeemed women’s right to vote 144 years after its independence. England took another 8 years to admit the same voting rights for women.
India decided not to use the border of the West. With the implementation of his constitution in 1950, the universal franchise for adults across the country came into force and granted every adult citizen the right to vote regardless of gender.
India’s view
The colonial government was never a supporter of women’s voting law. It believed that women were incompetent to fulfill such responsibility. Even when women granted the right to vote in the 1930 provinces, the real estate restrictions were limited to a mere 1 minute women.
With independence, the idea of ”one person, one voice, a value” came.
However, this was not without challenges. Illophabetism was widespread. With independence, India’s total competence rate was 12 percent while the degree of female literacy was reprehensible. World Bank India reported That only 1 of 11 girls were in the country formed at the time of freedom. There was also extreme poverty. 80 Percent of the country’s population lived in bitter poverty.
In view of these figures, the Universal franchise was seen as a threat to the young democracy of India, with many India advising against them. But the independent India was clear what it wanted for its citizens.
Dr. Ornit Shani in her book “How India was democratic (2017)” told how the main concern was not illiteracy or poverty. When the preparation of election roles began in November 1947, a large number of women refused to give their names and instead register as a woman, daughter or widow. This had previously been accepted by the colonial administration, but the first election commissioner of India, Sukumar sen, recorded the practice.
As a result, almost 2.8 million women’s voters were not justified in the first parliamentary elections, which were held between October 1951 and February 1952. Mr. Sen had full trust that this was important to bring these women into the election fold as the same folds.
The concerns about the “Purdah”, dressed women were addressed appropriately by building separate cabins, but not before women like Rkeya Sakhawat Hossain And Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz had loudly argued in his favor.
So that it is not accepted incorrectly, this remarkable decision of an emerging India was not without a history of the fight. The leaders and their organizations in the independence of India were at the top of the sowing of the idea of political equality in India.
Women’s Indian Association (WIA), founded in Madras in 1917, became a platform for the cooperation between Indian and European women who worked on creating a fairer society in India. Annie Besant, Margaret Cousins and Dorothy Jinarajadasa, prominent personalities from the west, closed with staled Indian women like Sarojini Naidu, Kamaladevi Chatopadhyay, Muthulakshmi Reddy and Ambujammal to fight for the path of women on the way to the excerpt.
They sent regular petitions to the British government in which it highlighted her cause, and Annie Besant even led a delegation to the Foreign Minister of India, Sir Edwin Montagu to request voting rights for Indian women.
In 1919, Sarojini Naidu, Downi Tata and Mithan Tata met in the lower house and tried to use the British MPs to assess their claims.
In addition, Wias Magazin Stri Dharma, edited by Jinrajadasa and Cousins, gave women around the world a voice to clarify women’s questions and struggles and thereby serve as an empowering force.
Contributions from Great Britain
There were many British members of the first generation who sympathized with the cause of the Indian Suffragists.
Eleanor Rathbone founded a committee for Indian women’s franchise in 1933 and urged reforms from 1935 to engage women in the law of the government of India. Mary Pickford was part of an Indian franchise committee that toured India in 1932 to propose paths to increase the number of voters in India. Similarly, Irene proposed two changes to the Law of the Law of the 1935 government, which could increase the number of Indian voters.
Another MP, Nancy Astor, wrote to the Foreign Minister of India, Samuel Hoare in 1935, and called for a higher proportion of female voters in India.
The limited voting rights granted by the Law of the Law of the Law of 1935 were partly a result of the efforts of these British MPs, which in India gave the urgently needed support of female activists.
In addition to MPs, other women in Great Britain have campaigned for the cause of the feeling of women in India.
Sophia Duleep Singh, a British Suffragist, was an English woman of Indian origin who visited India several times and encouraged Indian women to fight for her rights, especially for the right to vote.
Another remarkable woman, Lolita Roy, moved from Kalkutta to England in 1900 and played an active role in the Petition of the British government to grant Indian women.
The historian Dr. However, Sumita Mukherjee warns against being carried away by this story. It indicates the imperialist bias, which in the way colonial women were viewed in Great Britain, reflected in the idea that was popular at the time that British women live in the empire, women with color who live in the empire.
How is the situation in India today?
We covered a long way from the first parliamentary elections from 1951 to 1952, in which 2.8 million women did not reveal their names. Today, every Indian woman at the age of 18 or higher can choose. The only criterion that she has to meet is an Indian citizen.
Women can also contest elections, and there are no constitutional or legal obstacles that prevent them from rising to the highest offices in the country. President Droupadi Murmu, a tribal woman who occupies the country’s highest government office, is a typical example.
However, the picture is not all rosy. Of a total of 543 chosen, only sit in the Indian parliament 14 Percent are occupied by representatives of women. The situation is more outrageous in states. Only in 2023 9 Percent MLAS were women.
The reservation law of women in 2023, which is reserved for a third of all seats in parliament and state legislation for women, was adopted after a longer 27-year battle. Regardless of this, there is no clarity about when it will come into force. Since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are already over, it will probably not be at all times before 2029 if the next parliamentary elections are planned.