There are many conclusions that can be drawn from the people’s verdict delivered at the hustings in five states at the beginning of this month. The most obvious and the most hyped up conclusion is the emergence of woman power in Indian politics with three of the states, and the most crucial ones too, being headed by woman chief ministers. Madhya Pradesh had never seen a woman CM, nor had Rajasthan. Delhi too got its first woman CM in the last elections and she has been victorious again. (Sushma Swaraj was CM for a brief two-month period in 1998). The fiery sanyasin, the sober royal and the sauve grandma, it is said, comprise the triumvirate that showcases the face of women leadership in the country. And, as the pollsters have pointed out emphatically, the turnout of women in favour of women chief ministerial candidates as compared with their male counterparts was phenomenonal.

Newly installed Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia, in fact, herself pointed out soon after the results were declared that the women turnout in Rajasthan was the never-before sky-high 61 per cent. The sweep that her party, the BJP, registered in terms of seats in the state assembly was propelled by woman power. The scenario is no different in Madhya Pradesh where a quarter of women voters sided with Uma Bharati as compared with those who rooted for the Congress Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. In Delhi, too, the turnout in favour of Sheila Dikshit was almost double as compared with that in favour of Madan Lal Khurana.

However, there is a flip side to this reading. In MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, the voter elected governments of parties that are headed by men. The Congress run by Sonia Gandhi failed to create any swing in the voting pattern. The She-factor did not work at the macro level even though the elections were portrayed as a run up to the Lok Sabha elections due next year. The man versus woman issue or preference of one gender over the other failed to score at this mini-national mandate. In other words, local issues, anti-incumbency, careful strategising and party commitment helped make the day for the three ladies.

This is not to say that the woman factor played a marginal role. In fact, the role of women in turning the tide wholesale first hit the poll pundits in the face during the 1984 election. A night before the polling, the Congress showed the video of the last journey of slain leader Indira Gandhi on rigged up VCPs to rural and semi-urban electorate. The result was that emotionally charged women came out in large numbers to vote for the party. Rajiv Gandhi won a historic landslide victory and women power as a potent political force was established beyond doubt.

In fact, Indira Gandhi’s initial success was not on account of her gender. In the 1971 poll, she used the garibi hatao plank and came to power on the strength of the Muslim, Dalit and upper caste vote bank. She did not assiduously woo the woman voter till 1980 when she tried to emerge as Indira amma to womenfolk. Though the gender factor worked only marginally for her, the process of women participating more vigorously in the political process had begun.

The following decades saw a larger and larger percentage of women voters as various parties made direct efforts to get them to polling stations. Many election strategists even believed that the woman vote could be used to cancel out the effects of caste or communal politics in many afflicted constituencies. The shifting of the Jat vote in Rajasthan to the BJP, which played a pivotal role in securing the mandate for the party, can be ascribed to the turnout of women in these areas in its favour.

In fact, over the last decade and a half, Indian politics has truly provided equal opportunity to women. From participation to management, women have emerged as key players. It would be no exaggeration to say that no other country in the world has reduced the gender gap so much in such a short time as Indian body politic has. The best variation in voting patterns between men and women that the USA has produced was 12 points in 1996 when Bill Clinton was returned as President. However, the December 1 poll in the Indian states has produced a remarkable difference of 23 to 24 per cent points. For a democracy that is just 50-odd years old and a society that is still heavily biased against women, the difference is heartening to say the least. It may indeed be a unique achievement in the annals of democracy at the global level.

Moreover, it is not just about three women coming to power simultaneously. Till recently, Mayawati was running Uttar Pradesh in a manner that would be an envy of many a man. Rabri Devi rules Bihar, though many may say only in a token manner. Down South, Jayalalithaa has Tamil Nadu in her iron grip while in the North Mufti Mohammad Sayeed may be the CM but it is Mehbooba who calls the shots. Almost single-handedly, Mehbooba ran the election campaign last year and despite the bullets and the blasts managed a decent victory for her party.

The biggest challenges in Indian politics are also emerging from women. At the national level, the only viable all-India opposition party is the Congress, and it is led by a woman. Its next best hope is again a woman — Priyanka Gandhi. The Congress CM in Punjab is being challenged by a woman — Rajinder Kaur Bhattal. In HP, it is Vidya Stokes and in Rajasthan it is Girja Vyas. The closet aide to the Congress president so far was Ambika Soni. In the BJP, too, the counter points to the dynamic young faces of Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu are Uma Bharati, Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje. They dominate the scene as much as the men do and have the strength to make their voices heard.

In West Bengal, the Left Front’s most troublesome opponent is Mamata Banerjee while Mulayam Singh Yadav gets sleepless nights because of Mayawati. In other words, in at least two thirds of the country, women are either in power or are the main challengers. Nowhere in the world is the voice of women as strong as in Indian politics. They have come to share the centrestage almost equally, if not more.

Interestingly, the Left parties have tom-tommed the equality issue over the decades. But they have failed to nurture and develop their women cadre. Women activists have remained just that and have failed find responsible positions in the party hierarchy, save a couple of exceptions. Even the so-called secular socialist parties like the ones led by Laloo and Mulayam Yadav have also denied equal opportunity to women and they have continued to languish on the sidelines. Quam-oriented parties like the Akali Dal and the Muslim League, too, fall in the same category.

Despite the handicap of not having reservation for women in Parliament, women leadership continues to grow in numbers and in strength. In fact, the reservation for women at the Panchayat level provides the best nursery for nurturing leadership among them. The system is likely to ensure that new faces will fill the gaps left by the old ones over the years to come.

The December 2003 assembly elections, hence, were not about propping up women candidates as a sort of political tokenism. They were also not about women rooting for women in MP and Rajasthan or women rejecting Sonia Gandhi’s leadership and preferring Atal Behari Vajpayee. They were about sharing responsibilities and working together, and being equal partners. For the BJP, Rajasthan and MP were critical states with well-entrenched chief ministers. There were several senior male leaders who could have been assigned the job of securing these states for the party. Instead, Uma Bharati and Vasundhara Raje got the job. Ten years or may be even five years ago, this was unthinkable. The women would have been asked to wait while men took over. But now women are no longer in the queue. Rather, they are at the very top. It now seems that Indian politics has come to terms with handing over the toughest of jobs to the best candidate, gender notwithstanding.