POSH Reforms: Why I Disagree with SC That Political Parties Are Not 'Workplaces'

Unless Parliament acts, politics will remain India’s most toxic workplace for women.

India ranks 122 out of 177 countries surveyed, as per the 2023 Women Peace and Security Index on women’s inclusion, justice, and security.

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint/Generated using MidJourney AI.)

A young, female aspirant from Madhya Pradesh was travelling in a car with a state 'leader' from a major political party. She had just plunged into state politics, having cut her teeth as a legislative assistant in Delhi. She had been introduced to the 'leader' even as a novice, since her uncle had been an MLA in the past. The 'leader' couldn't contain his outpouring of fatherly advise: "Why are you joining politics? Don't you know this is not for girls from decent families and only loose women join? Plus, you have to work hard, day and night, without a break."

She knew that her only insulation against creeps was her lineage. "But what about the rest of the women in politics?" she asked me.

The 'rest' of the women in politics are in crores, as per political parties' membership claims. That would make it the sector with arguably one of the largest female unpaid volunteer bases in India.

Courts and the Question of ‘Workplaces’

Meanwhile, in the hallowed courtroom of Tilak Marg, while delivering the judgement in the recent 'Yogamaya v The State of Kerala' case, the Bench remarked: "How do you equate political parties as workplaces? When a person joins a political party, it is not employment. It is not a job as they join political parties on their own volition and on non-remuneration basis. How can the law against sexual harassment at workplace include political parties? This will open a Pandora's box to blackmail the members."

The Court's wisdom did not mind the eponymous, 'karyakarta,' or worker, that is applied in many Indian languages to political party workers.

Beyond the inadmissibility of political parties as workplaces in the verdict, which itself is contestable, the comment on women blackmailing party members, casts sexist subjectivity as sweeping generalisation.

India ranks 122 out of 177 countries surveyed, as per the 2023 Women Peace and Security Index on women’s inclusion, justice, and security. Whether or not one buys into these rankings, the evidence staring at us in our daily lives is irrefutable.

India's tortured gender ratio, nonchalant domestic violence, savage levels of gang rape and legal blessing of marital rape scream the reality as loudly as our abysmal rate of convictions for crimes against women.

Misogyny in Public and Private Political Spaces

While sexual harassment inside companies and non-profit organisations mostly stays contained within their walls and Internal Complaints Committees, in politics, some of it spills out onto the streets, in clear view of their Lordships and the public.

The public targeting of women in politics with sexual epithets, degrading language and rape threats on social and traditional media, and during electioneering, is politically unrestrained and legally indemnified.

Inside parties, allegations, warnings, horror stories and cautionary tales of sexual harassment by various 'leaders' and office-bearers, form so loud a whisper, that most families would recoil with horror if their daughter exhaled one breath of political ambition. Even political families attempt to dissuade their women from stepping foot into politics, except when it furthers male ambition.

Even though parties may not execute an employment contract, and pay salaries or wages, in the usual sense, party workers are expected to serve them exclusively, and are partially remunerated in other ways.

Party offices may provide free lunch and snacks daily, travel may be reimbursed or sponsored and office-bearers may be provided with vehicles. Party networks provide favoured access to affiliated service-providers, and distribute goodies like sarees or phones, all mounting to in-kind remunerations.

Plus, growth within the party hierarchy as an office-bearer, and selection as candidate are prized rewards, handed out in return for valued outcomes that expand the party footprint. Party honchos and anointed committees evaluate party functionaries on their performance in delivering on their 'work.'

In these respects, parties are quite similar to other formal organisations like companies and associations, with their hierarchies, roles, processes, growth objectives, expected conduct, and reward structures.

The Legal Void and Parliamentary Silence

All that said, Courts have weighed in that the PoSH Act does not extrapolate to political parties, when petitioners pushed for a malleable interpretation of the Act. Even as attempts to judicially breach that barrier continue, the larger question as to why Parliament stays muzzled on this matter stays open.

The PoSH Act itself was only passed in 2013, after six and a half decades of women having worked without legal guardrails against sexual harassment. Even then, an indifferent Parliament was forced by extraordinary public pressure that refused to relent, in the wake of the Nirbhaya tragedy. Still, it is now 12 years since, and while scores of elections have fuelled egregious misogyny against women in politics, Parliament has not stirred. This lack of urgency reflects a culturally ingrained tolerance for violence against women.

When the PoSH Act was passed, culling from the Justice Verma Committee report, its recommendations vis-a-vis political parties were omitted. The committee had devoted a whole section to sexual harassment in politics, but oriented it towards just electoral politics.

Their counsel pertained to male election candidates who were charge-sheeted or convicted of sexual offences, and the roles of political parties, the Election Commission and the Parliament in that context.

Missed Precedents and the Need for Surveys

Even the committee had sidestepped the larger-scale issue impacting women daily — the sexual harassment of female party members, office bearers and candidates, within and beyond their parties.

However, they did set a precedent with the inclusion of domestic workers in the ambit of their report, even though they are not employed by an organisation. They commissioned a survey of domestic workers to understand the scale of the malaise and then put forth their submissions. The PoSH Act included them in its passing.

A similar effort needs to be undertaken through Parliament by conducting a survey of women in politics. It cannot be left to parties to regulate themselves given their record of dubious institutional morality. Their fund raising, with and without electoral bonds is opaque; the voting public has no idea if foreign money enters India's elections.

Party internal appointments lack transparency and democracy, and they are outside the circumference of the RTI. They show scant rectitude in candidate selection; 46 percent of sitting Parliamentarians have criminal cases against them. Violence by party members triggers retribution, not the rule of law.

Likewise, overt misogyny that boils over in election season, barely gets a slap on the wrist from their own lot. There are nearly no institutional checks on their conduct, except peripherally during elections. They are unregulated entities in many matters, teetering between rogue and sovereign, and mostly unaccountable to the public. They are the weakest institutional link in our democratic chain.

The Democratic Paradox

Note that political parties are a different kind of beast than any other public or private entity in that they provide the raw material from which the country's very political executive and legislative are drawn. To keep them relieved of legal and statutory, indeed constitutional burdens of rectitude, while allowing them frame laws that impose upon the rest of us, is an irreconcilable paradox!

In a Westminster-style democracy, lawmaking is initiated by the ruling party in government, rather than individual legislators. While private member bills are provisioned in the legislative cycle, India has steadfastly sidelined them with just fourteen such bills having passed in seven decades.

So far, the legislative cycle has kicked-off on two propellants: ruling party agenda and large scale citizen action. The most recent women-centric legislation, the Women's Reservation Bill, for instance, was introduced after women repeatedly rewrote electoral fates through the sheer power of their turnouts at voting booths. It had already featured on the same ruling party's agenda many times over, untouched.

Towards Gender-Safe Political Parties

In a mature democracy, the impetus for the legislative cycle, should derive largely from public matters, the temperature of society and economy, and feedback from other pillars. The Government of India needs to take cognisance of this gap in the PoSH Act, the counsel of courts, and the visible targeting of women in politics. It needs to use this impetus to draft law that refashions political parties into gender-inclusive, safe institutions, or they will continue to remain toxic environments for women political workers.

Such a law is not only necessary for women's equality, dignity and political participation but for the health of democracy itself. Only a non-discriminatory environment in a political party can enable the full participation of one and all, in the very vehicle that helps deliver self-governance.

It is therefore, imperative to accord political parties special status amongst organisations, and legislate safeguards for women engaging with them, be they members, casual temporary workers with vendors providing services, volunteers for political campaigns and particular events, office bearers, candidates or elected representatives.

It remains to be seen which ruling party is willing to save political parties from themselves.

(Tara Krishnaswamy is an independent political and policy consultant, working on welfare, federalism, gender. and urban issues. She tweets at: @tarauk. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)