Women voters expected to play significant role in India’s general election

In a small house at the end of a narrow alley in the western Indian city of Jodhpur, women were hard at work sewing scraps of cloth together to make patchwork. 

At this vocational training center run by a local nonprofit called Sambhali Trust, women from low-income families learn self-defense and other life skills like sewing and embroidery.

As 31-year-old Yasmin Bano guided a square piece of cloth under the needle, she said that she’s never missed voting in any election. But that wasn’t the case for her mother or grandmother.

“Back in the day, only men used to take an interest in voting and elections,” Bano said. “Women were more concerned with housework.”

Bano is now part of India’s emerging female voter bloc. And more women like her are taking part in the multiweek general election currently underway in India.

Nearly half of the electorate is expected to be female. It follows a rising trend of female voter turnout in recent years. In the last parliamentary election in 2019, women voted at a higher rate than men for the first time in India’s history. And by 2029, women voters are expected to outnumber men. 

“That’s an incredible feat for the country,” said Rithika Kumar, a political scientist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. But it shrouds a more complicated reality on the ground for women.

“It’s a very interesting contrast that we are seeing, that women are actually coming out to vote, but it doesn’t seem to be translating in some of the other key dimensions of female empowerment,” Kumar added.

Political parties court women

India’s political parties are trying to win over these crucial women voters, running campaign ads targeted toward them and tailoring election guarantees according to women’s needs. Their promises include everything from direct cash transfers to building public toilets and hostels for women. 

But one party has been particularly successful in appealing to women — that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“The BJP particularly has made incredible inroads into the political consciousness, even of rural women voters,” Kumar said.

At another training center in Jodhpur, a group of about two dozen women said they’re all rooting for Modi. “We hope he wins this time, too,” said Chanchal Chauhan, who is learning embroidery. 

“Modi has tried to bring gender equality,” participant Pooja Prajapati said. “He has created jobs for women, created opportunities for women in sports.”

Sitting beside her, Priyanka Barasa rattled off a string of welfare schemes introduced by Modi, under which low-income families have received subsidized cooking gas, water and electricity connections, affordable housing and more.

Persisting gender gaps

Welfare schemes often form the centerpiece of political parties’ outreach toward women.

Across Indian cities, huge billboards display Modi’s face along with the faces of the women who have benefitted from his government’s myriad schemes. “Mothers give us strength and Modi gives strength to mothers,” goes a BJP campaign ad. 

While the rising number of female voters is resulting in politicians paying more heed to women’s problems, there’s often a patriarchal connotation in the way political parties talk about women’s issues, Kumar explained.

“Many of these schemes … are still thinking of women in the context of the household,” she said. “Thinking of women as individuals who need to be provided for and whose main duty is caregiving. But more needs to be done to think of women’s identities beyond the household.” 

That’s particularly important given the state of India’s female workforce participation. “Labor force participation among [Indian] women was, until very recently, declining and now has plateaued and still remains abysmally low,” Kumar added.

Many women at the training centers in Jodhpur said they wanted to work but were discouraged by their families or were tied down by responsibilities at home.

Significant gender gaps remain in other forms of political engagement.

“Be it constant engagement with the state for your benefits, demanding rights and entitlements from your local state actors or even things like attending campaign rallies or door-to-door canvassing — all of these still remain very, very male-dominated spaces,” Kumar said. 

And while female voters have become a common sight, women leaders are rare. Women make up only 14% of India’s lower house of parliament. That is set to change after 2029, when a recently passed bill mandating a third of seats in parliament be reserved for women goes into effect. 

A deep-rooted patriarchy

Even though more women are turning up to vote, their choice is often decided by the men in their families, said Govind Singh Rathore, the founder of Sambhali Trust, a nonprofit that runs the vocational training centers in Jodhpur.

Many of the women his nonprofit serves don’t have much exposure to the news or social media, he explained.

“Unfortunately, [because of] patriarchy they’re not strengthened enough to [take] such sort of decisions on their own,” Rathore said, adding that it all boils down to the deeply ingrained conservative attitudes in states like Rajasthan, of which Jodhpur is a part.

The gender divide in Rajasthan is very wide. Families prefer sons, Rathore explained, and when a daughter is born, family members often keep the girl’s hair short to make her appear like a boy.

Within some Hindu families, they also start calling the girls “derogatory terms or names so that God would then bless [them] with a boy child.” He’s come across parents who have named their daughters “Dhapu,” which roughly translates to “being fed up.” This misogynistic attitude needs to change, he said.

Back at the training center in Jodhpur, women discussed their hopes for the future. They said they want more focus on women’s education, more jobs, better safety and more freedom.

“You can’t post a photo, you can’t wear shorts, you can’t wear makeup or speak out, because society will judge you,” Rita Khitchi said. Another woman, Chanchal Chauhan, said she never used to dance because she lacked confidence.

But not anymore. Every Saturday, the women take a break from their work and turn the music up.

“Now, I dance my heart out,” Chauhan said.

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