Stree-Shakti – Looking for a place under the sun

by Shibani Dasgupta

While the country was paying tribute to ‘stree-shakti’ during the festive season, a group of determined women got together and resolved to find a place under the sun for themselves and the fellow citizens of the country. Primarily it will take up gender issues and with the elections to a couple of States round the corner, the United Women’s Front hopes to make an impact.

A group of very motivated women, led by the spouse of an erstwhile Vice President of India, now deceased, have got together with a resolve to give unto themselves collective power in the form of a political party that will press forward to find themselves a place under the sun. Not that India lacks woman power or recognition, but and a very big but at that, most of it is at the individual level.

As the people in most parts of the country paid tribute to "stree-shakti" or woman power, we saw the formation of a "United Women's Front(UWF)", in New Delhi the other day, which the organizers described as a historical moment for the women of India which will be the only national political party formed by women. They form more than half the population but still are not independent and still dominated by the other half of the population.

It is noted by the organizers of the UWF, whose general secretary Ms Prem Ahluwalia has said- all the efforts of various women organizations, women leaders and all those who support our cause, have fallen on deaf ears. This left us with no alternative but to form a national political party for women the UWF.

The party has been formed by women, but is meant for all the citizens of India. The party's national constitution aims at strengthening the dignity of each individual, to awaken the women as one voice and to unite the country with no divisions on the basis of colour, caste, creed or religion. The UWF will work for the well being and advancement of the people of India by peaceful and constitutional means in a socialist state, based on parliamentary democracy where there will be equal opportunities for all. The general secretary of this nascent party said it aimed at eradicating poverty, illiteracy, corruption and gender inequality while protecting the sovereignty of India.

Taking up gender issues will be one of the objectives. Women as we know have been struggling to make a place for themselves on the national scene. Empowerment of women at all levels is the need of the hour. The women's front says it believes working in total harmony with men on as equal footing, but unfortunately this is not acceptable to any political party and so the need have a separate national political party for women.

The front gave a typical and very valid point that arises out of the Women's Reservation Bill. For a decade now, the Women's Reservation Bill has been coming up in each Parliament session, only to be scuttled by the majority of male parliamentarians. Even though women consist of about 50 percent of the country's population, no political party has shown any interest in a strong women's representation at the state and national levels. Today only eight percent women are inparliament. The political scenario remains unchanged.

All political parties, when they differ on major national issues, create a hue and cry and voice their protests, even using unparliamentary language and resorting to fistfights, much to the disgust of the public on whose votes they sit in parliament, as their representatives. But, when it comes to the issue of reservation of seats for women, they are all united in their stand against it.


Women in India do not have political backing or patronage, social safety and security. The alarming dominance of mafia and anti-social elements in politics has destroyed the social, economic and political spinal cord of India. Terrorism, social injustice, rampant corruption, misuse of power, political vandalism is breaking the social, secular democratic ideology of the country.

The UWF's main agenda now is to ensure more than 33 percent reservation in Parliament. Political parties have been talking about it for long, but We want it to be implemented right away, Ms Ahluwalia has said. The important consideration here is that United Women Front is essentially a statement of protest against a slide towards tokenism of Women's participation in the Indian political system.

With its registration already in place the party is all set to fight the upcoming elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat we have applied for the elections symbol. It would either be a torch or a lamp working president of the Front, says Shanti Das. The party has also made it clear that in case it is not fielding any candidate, it will consider supporting other candidates with similar ideology.

The formation of the Front has its roots in the Mahila Dakshata Samiti, an organization started way back in the 1970s, under which women were encouraged to train themselves to work and earn a livelihood by hard work, individually as well as collectively. One only hopes that the Front digs its heels in and achieves what it has set out to do, in the coming months and years.