WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE

The right to vote for women was permitted when India gained its independence in 1947.
Although the movement for women’s right to vote begun in early 1900’s, which was in response
to the national movement for suffrage of voting. In the British era, vast majority of both men and
women weren’t allowed to vote as it was a colonial rule and everything that happened was
limited to certain people only. But after Indian Independence, the Constitution of India officially
granted rights to both men and women to vote for their desired political party1. And it is
absolutely important for women to participate in voting for elections because India being a
democratic country, it should emphasize more on women being critical voters as majority of
voters are women statistically

The Constitution of India vouches for women about their rights. Women are given equal rights,
there will no discrimination by the state, the opportunity will be given equally for both men and
women, women are promised equal pay for equal work, if women are derogated in any variety,
the person will be renounced, the constitution allows the state to make special provision in favor
of children and women. Although previously, in the British era, major provinces such as Madras
(Chennai) and Bombay (Mumbai) reserved rights to vote for women, in 1919 - 1929, women had
the rights to vote in a selected political election which were selected especially for them2.

Article 326 of the Indian Constitution, speaks that the elections has to be held on adult suffrage,
where in both men and women has the right to vote regardless of their caste, religion, social
status etc. if the person is above the age of 18, then they are entitled to be a eligible voter under
the law.

1
http://www.simplydecoded.com/2014/03/16/women-voting-history/
2
https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/11/08/indian-women-are-voting-more-than-ever.-will-they-change-indian-
society-pub-77677

1
Statistically speaking, women are the higher number of voters than men. The political
participation of women is higher in cases of voting terms. The phenomena of gender bias are
seemingly non-existent in the terms of voting in India, the data collected is in favor of women
participants than of male participants. This specific document is an important development in the
terms of politics, it basically dictates that the self-empowerment of political participation of
women is seemingly increasing than declining3.

The gender ratio of voters is defined as number of women voters to every 1000 men voting in the
election, which states that in 1960’s, it was around 715 female voters for every 1000 men, and it
increased to whooping 883 voters per 1000 in the early 2000’s4. another statistics suggested that
many women are voluntarily exercising their right to vote constitutionally across India, this
basically means that rise in self-empowerment of women to exercise their fundamental rights and
their freedom of expression. The statistic of the total number of women voters around the world
in a democratic country is out of 717 million voters, a whooping 324 million voters are women5.

3
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43081429
4
https://www.csds.in/uploads/custom_files/1529066448_Women%E2%80%99s%20Participation%20in
%20Electoral%20Politics%20in%20India.pdf
5
https://www.indiaspend.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Kapoor-Ravi-2014.pdf