Extracts of the speech of Shri Rahul Gandhi, MP, on the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha on September 20, 2023.

It’s nice to be speaking for the first time in the new house, in your presence. I stand in support of the Women’s Reservation Bill. Yesterday, I was listening to the discussion and the issue of the Sengol came up and there was a conversation… a to-and-fro about the Sengol, and also little bit about the conversation… about the transfer of power from the British to the people of India. Before handing over power to the people of India, the British asked the leadership of the freedom movement - who are we going to transfer power to? And of course, there was a little bit of arrogance in the statement, because they viewed India as a poor country and the revolutionary answer, that our freedom fighters gave, was we are going to transfer power to the people of India.

So, we became a country that from its inception gave the vote to all our women, and this was a revolutionary thing at that time. We also gave the vote to every single community, and the vote was a mechanism of transfer of power. It was designed to further transfer power to the people of India and if you look at the journey from Independence, it’s been that journey. It’s been a constant transfer of power, more and more and more power to the people of India on one side. And on the other side, the counter idea that take away power from the people of India… this is the fight that is going on and in fact, in many ways, it is the fight that is taking place today.

A huge step forward in the transfer of power to the women of India was Panchayati Raj, where they were given reservation and they were allowed to enter the political system at scale. And this is another step, it’s a big step…. it is not a small step and I am sure everybody in this room, the treasury benches, the Opposition… everybody agrees that this is a very important step for the women of our country.

They fought for Independence, they are as capable as any man, in many ways more capable, and should be given as much space as they possibly can be given. There is one thing in my view that makes this bill incomplete. I would like to have seen OBC reservation included in this bill. I think it is very important that a large chunk of India’s population, large chunk of India’s women should have access to this reservation and that is missing in this bill.

There are also two things that seem strange to me - one is the idea that you require a new census to implement this bill and the second is that you require a new delimitation to implement this bill. In my view, it is quite simple, this bill can be implemented today by giving 33 per cent of the seats in the Lok Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha to India’s women.

And so, I wonder if this is not designed to push the ball forward… to push the ball forward seven, eight, nine years and then let this thing play out the way it does. I know my friends tend to like to take the attention of people away from other issues. There is, of course, the Adani issue which is they always want take the attention away.

But there is another…Yeah, Yeah, I would like to say that… one of the things that this is quite a nice building, nice peacocks, nice peacock feathers on the ground, nice peacock feathers in the chair… it’s a nice tasteful building, but frankly I would have liked to see the President of India in this process. The President of India is a woman, she represents the tribal community and it would have been befitting to have her visible in this transfer from one house to the other.

So, one of the things that the government likes to distract from, of course, is Mr. Adani and there is another thing that the government likes to distract everybody from, and that thing is called the caste census. For some reason and I don’t quite understand what this reason is… the moment the Opposition raises the issue of caste census, the BJP tries to create a new distraction, a new sudden event so that the OBC community and the people of India look the other way. In my research for the speech, I took a look at the different institutions that define how our country moves forward. There are many… there is the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Vidhan Sabhas… there is the bureaucracy, there is the press, there is the Judiciary and I look with an eye to understand what is the participation of the OBC community in these institutions…. Don’t worry, don’t worry… don’t be scared, don’t scared…. I checked.... simple thing I did, I said- look what is the most important set of people in the Government of India.... the people who define how this country is governed, of course, Lok Sabha, and Vidhan Sabha, but beyond that they are the ninety secretaries of the Government of India. Ninety secretaries are responsible for managing the core of the Government of India and I ask myself the question, how many of the ninety people come from the OBC community? And I was shocked and shattered by the answer.

Out of 90 Secretaries of India, only 3 are from OBC and listen, these secretaries, who are from OBC community, control only 5 percent of the budget of India. Meaning, if India’s budget is Rs. 44 lakh crores, then they control a mere 2.47 lakh crores, i.e. 5 percent.

This discussion is about the transfer of power to the people of India, the women being one group of the people of India and the OBC community being another group of the people of India. I am elaborating that the OBCs, who number a huge percentage, have three percent of the ninety secretaries of this country, and control and define five percent of India’s budget. This is an insult and a shame to the OBC community. So, the question arises that how many OBCs, how many Dalits, how many tribals are there in this country and the answer to that question can be found only through caste census.

So, I have a suggestion to the government that first of all, pass this women’s bill, pass it today, let it be implemented, and this delimitation that you have said and this census, there is no need for it. Give the 33 percentage directly to the women.

Secondly, you change this list because it is an insult to the OBC community. 90 people are secretaries of India, out of which 3 people are from OBC community, 5 percent control the budget. So, do the caste census as soon as possible, release the data of the caste census we had done and if you don’t do it, we will do it. Thank you!