Gender Participation in Parliamentary Politics: Interview with Binda Pandey

FES Nepal: During the first Constituent Assembly in Nepal, women’s groups formed a caucus that successfully advocated for their agendas within political parties and the parliament. After the promulgation of the 2015 Constitution, the caucus has been transitioned by has been replaced by the Women's Parliament Coordinating Committee, which has also made strides in creating gender-friendly laws and policies. Could you discuss the importance of solidarity between the cross-party women parliamentarians in this context and how it helps to enhance their collective effectiveness?

Binda Pandey: The key to achieving women's rights and social justice in our context is a more widely coordinated solidarity, collaborative effort, and collective action on a common agenda, among and beyond the women's movement. In this regard, examples can be taken time and again from our past. After the overthrowing of the 103-year Rana Regime, an advisory council was formed in 1953 to act somehow as interim legislation, but it was women-free. Then, women with different ideologies and professions rebelled against it. As result, four women were nominated to the council.

Another example is the 1990 constitution of Nepal, which discriminated against daughters in regard to paternal property, and a case was filed in the supreme court in 1995. After a year, the court gave a verdict to correct [that discrimination]. Responding court verdict, there was a bill in parliament, but it lingered for a few years with reluctance to adopt it. The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) (Note: The IPU is an international organization of national parliaments) recommended forming a cross-party alliance between women members of parliament to make their voice heard. As a member state, the parliament of Nepal formed the women MPs Caucus  in late 2001. This started to make [women’s] collective voice. Finally, in March 2002, the bill relating to women's right to property, divorce, abortion etc. (known as 11^th amendment of civil code) was adopted unanimously through parliament.

Coming together for common goals continued even after the successful movement in April 2006. (Note: April 2006 saw the restitution of Nepal’s House of Representatives, dissolved in 2002, following successful people's movement.) On 30 May, a motion was unanimously adopted [in parliament] ensuring  at least one-third of women [representatives] in every state mechanism, [the ability to acquire] citizenship using the mother’s name, the amendment of all gender discriminatory laws and the ending of gender-based violence. But, while the commission to draft the interim constitution was formed in second week of June, no woman was included. Then, women of all political ideologies and professions, as well as civil society, immediately came to the street with demand of respecting parliamentary motion adopted two weeks ago. After a week-long street agitation, four women, including Sushila Karki (who later became chief justice of the supreme court) were included in the commission. In fact, they played a vital role to include the provisions regarding gender equality as part of the interim constitution.

Similarly, women members of the first Constituent Assembly, across the parties, formed the Women’s Caucus in 2008. It worked closely on the common gender agenda internally and coordinated with women's movements externally, including women's alliances such as political leaders, women's organizations, professionals, civil society organizations and NGOs. The broader coordination, cooperation and collective action resulted in significant achievements in favour of gender equality in the draft constitution.

In addition, during the second Constituent Assembly in 2014, the Women’s Caucus was badly discouraged by political leaders, and informally banned. But, when a woman was elected as speaker of the house after promulgation of the constitution on September 20, 2015, women members of parliament came together under the name Women MPs Coordination Committee in December 2015. It could intervene effectively in the legislative process. As a result, critical masses of women in political parties and executive positions of local government, as well as the equal property rights, have been guaranteed by related laws.

All these experiences have proven that when women come together, they can make tangible changes [regarding] gender parity and social justice.

FES Nepal: There has been debate on amendment of constitution of Nepal. One of the issues of amendment is enhancing gender equality in political representation and decision-making process. In this context, how should women parliamentarians strategize and collaborate to ensure that gender considerations are adequately addressed in the amendment process?

Binda Pandey: Amendment of the constitution is one of the important issues. Before making remarks on it, the constitution needs to be audited with a gender lens, not only the provisions of numerical representation, but also, guaranteeing topmost positions, the provisions relating to identity and citizenship, the process of nominating people to constitutional bodies etc. In addition, the proposals with a gender perspective need to be prepared beforehand, and do campaigning to let the masses know about its relevancy. While the government must start this process, intervention can happen from the rank and file as well. 

For this purpose, as well, it is necessary to have a women MPs’ alliance, which would be part of the regulation of federal parliament and a collaborative effort with wider solidarity from media, women's movements in the political sphere, as well as the civic arena. In addition, more than two thousand women across the country have worked at least one term as elected representatives, from the national parliament to local bodies as executive posts. This is an incredible human resource, with experience. Bringing them into a network and mobilizing them in favour of changing gender relations, roles and responsibilities, can make a huge impact.      

FES Nepal: There have been instances where state institutions have failed to adhere to constitutional requirements concerning women’s representation in Nepal. In light of this, are there specific lessons that countries in Asia can learn from Nepal? Conversely, are there effective practices from other Asian nations that Nepal could adopt?

Binda Pandey: Feminizing politics as state mechanism, policy, leadership, agenda and practice are the key to promoting substantive gender equality. In our context, in a sense policies and agendas have now been set up. But making real structural change is a big challenge. A critical mass of women is almost guaranteed in many structures, but not in critical positions to make and intervene in decisions. This is caused by a lack of feminist perspective and growth mindset in leadership. While talking about the takeaways for other countries, creating broader alliances, building support systems, and maximizing available resources collaboratively might be something to learn from Nepali experiences.

Collaboration with academia to make fact-based policy interventions, and feminizing the politics to make change more sustainable with quality, are weakness with regards to our work. [There is also a tendency for grassroots experiences to be blurred or distorted by the academic process of knowledge production.] Learning from others in these areas would be essential to strengthen our work with tangible outputs in a functional way. For this purpose, regular public gender auditing of different sectors and issues, and making those materials available and accessible for people in general, are equally important.