Introduction
A modest self-effacing personality
but with a steely resolve to fight for the rights of women and the toiling
people of India, Geeta Mukherjee, CPI M.P. from Panskura, West Bengal, remained
active till the last day of her life. She was a member of the West Bengal
Legislative Assembly from 1967 to 1977, winning the Panskura Purba Assembly
seat 4 times in a row. She was elected a Member of Parliament for 7 terms, and
remained active in parliamentary struggles for a period of 33 long years.
Though she was a staunch Communist, she was admired and revered by all, even cutting across Party lines. No one could point a finger at her as she discharged her duties in the West Bengal Assembly and the Parliament of India as an honest, committed and modest peoples’ representative.
Geeta Mukherjee’s role in the drafting of the Women’s Reservation Bill and her inputs in the Joint Select Committee of Parliament were exemplary. In fact, she was the main architect of the Bill. She was also an active campaigner for the Bill and had resolved to get it passed in her lifetime. But unfortunately, that was not to be. Yet, the day her dream is fulfilled will be a turning point in the history of the Women’s Movement.
Mukherjee and The Women’s Bill
Geeta Mukherjee was Chairperson of
the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the Women's Reservation Bill since
1996 (providing for the reservation of one-third of the total number of seats
in State Assemblies and Parliament for women). During the 1996 elections to the
Eleventh Lok Sabha, all major political parties had declared in their election
manifestoes that they would get a Bill passed so as to introduce 33%
reservation for women in Parliament and the State Assemblies. The Women’s Reservation Bill was introduced for the first time on the 4th of September,
1996 by the United Front (Deve Gowda) Government. It was placed as the 81st
Constitutional Amendment Bill. Then it was referred to a Joint Select
Parliamentary Committee chaired by the late Geeta Mukherjee and with 31 members
from both houses of Parliament. The Joint Select Committee received 102
memoranda from different organizations and Women’s groups and Associations. It
also heard many eminent social workers and representatives of Women’s Organizations, and presented its
report to the Eleventh Lok Sabha on the 9th of December 1996, in a record
period of 3 months. Leaders of the NFIW recounted how many women had sent
memoranda signed in blood. This had really moved Geetadi.
She said she was determined to see the Bill reach its logical conclusion. But
her dream could not be fulfilled and the struggle for getting it passed got
severely diluted through disruptions by the Social Justice Camp of the RJD, the
JD(U), the JD(Secular) and the Samajwadi Party, that made a demand for a quota
within quota. She dependend on the Left, Congress and BJP to build a majority,
but was extremely disappointed to find them backtracking, using the lack of
consensus as a pretext. Although she was equally committed to other issues, her
main preoccupation had become ensuring passage of the Women's Reservation Bill. She had even turned down an offer
for a ministerial berth in the I.K. Gujral government on the ground that she
wanted to concentrate fully on the Bill. She had strived to carry everyone
along with her, including those who wanted a separate quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). In 1997, in the Monsoon Session of Parliament, Geeta Mukherjee
said, “Sir, I would like to inform the House that the
hon. Speaker had given us a word of honour that on the 29th July 1997, the
`Women's Reservation Bill' would be there in the List of Business.” All through the Monsoon Session Geeta Mukherjee lobbied for the
passage of the Eighty First Constitutional Amendment Bill, which had been placed
lowest in the List of Business. On 14 August, 1997, the last day of the Monsoon
Session, she had an opportunity to occupy the Chair, being on the panel of presiding officers who conduct the business of the House in the absence of the Speaker
and Deputy Speaker. All of a sudden, Geeta Mukherjee, as soon as she had
occupied the chair, declared that the Women’s Reservation Bill would be taken
up for discussion. But unfortunately, the Bill had been placed as item number
24 in the List, meaning that it would not be taken up at all on that day. She was
reminded by Ram Naik (BJP) that proceedings of the House would have to be
conducted according to rules. After Geeta Mukherjee it was Mr. Nitish Kumar’s
turn to be in the Chair. Again, Geeta Mukherjee demanded discussion on the
Women’s Bill. Nitish Kumar promised to give her an opportunity after business
under Rule 377 was over. But after that it was time for the Private Members’ Bills,
and Nitish said he could not do anything. That is when she appealed to women members
to stage a walkout in protest, but few women members were present. She finally
walked out of the House with five other Left and Congress women MPs. Sushma
Swaraj (BJP) chose not to join and slipped out quietly. “We walk out in protest of the Eighty-First Constitution (Amendment)
Bill not being taken up”, they declared. It was 3.46 p.m. Mr.
Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, M.P. from Howrah also left the house in support.
Geeta Mukherjee campaigned in all the states of the country for the Women’s
Bill. Speaking to journalists after facing defeat in the Parliament, she said, “Even when my husband died, I was brave. But today, I’ve been
reduced to tears.” Due to her strong political convictions and ideological commitment,
Geeta Mukherjee was respected by all, across party lines, but the Bill evaded consensus.
Geeta Mukherjee had in her Report of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament,
expressed her objections to sub-reservation or quota within 33% quota, where
she argued that there was no precedent or move for (general) OBC reservation in
Legislative bodies or Panchayats and that the problem could be solved without
reservation if OBC women could be put up in OBC-dominated constituencies (Geeta
Mukherjee Committee Report, 1997).
It has been a long struggle since 1996………..
Sept 1996 |
Women’s Reservation Bill introduced and referred to Joint Select
Committee of |
Nov 1996 |
Women’s organizations submit joint memo to Joint Select
Committee |
May 1997 |
Women’s organizations submit joint memo to national political
parties |
August 1997 |
Geeta Mukherjee walks out of House in protest of the Bill not
being taken up for discussion, along with 5 women MPs |
July 1998 |
Joint women’s protest at Parliament to press for passage of Bill |
July 1998 |
National Commission of Women condemns manhandling of women
protestors and demands that there be no dilution of Bill |
Aug 1998 |
Joint delegation of women’s organizations meets PM Vajpayee |
Aug 1998 |
Joint march and dharna to Parliament and demand to list the Bill
for discussion and |
Nov 1998 |
Women’s Charter for 12th Lok Sabha Elections demand passage of
Bill by political parties |
Dec 1998 |
Joint Convention at Delhi – “Voices of all communities for 33%
Reservation for Women” |
March 1999 |
International Women’s Day jointly observed with the main demand
for the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill |
April 2000 |
Joint Memo to the Chief Election Commissioner to withdraw
proposal for reservation for women in party lists as an alternative to the
Bill |
Dec 2000 |
Joint delegation to Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi to protest
against his calling a |
March 2003 |
Joint memorandum to Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sushma
Swaraj to demand that the Bill is put to vote rather than discuss alternative
proposals in all party meeting |
April 2003 |
Joint appeal to leaders of political parties to support passage
of Bill on the 10th anniversary of the 73rd and 74th Amendments
giving 33% reservation to women in local self-government bodies. |
April 2004 |
Joint election statement issued to vote NDA government out of Parliament.
One of the reasons cited was betrayal of women on the Reservation Bill |
May 2004 |
Joint appeal to Congress President Sonia Gandhi to demand
inclusion of the assurance to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Common
Minimum Programme |
May 2005 |
Joint delegation to PM Manmohan Singh to ask for placing Bill
for discussion |
May 2006 |
Joint delegation meets PM Manmohan Singh once again to demand
introduction of Bill for discussion |
May 2006 |
Joint delegation to meet Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav
requesting him to intervene positively in favour of the Bill |
2nd August 2006
An amended version of the original
Bill was placed in 2008. This Bill had had a chequered history. Similar Bills
were introduced in 1996, 1998 and 1999 – all of which lapsed after the dissolution
of the respective Lok Sabhas. The Joint Parliamentary Committee chaired by
Geeta Mukherjee had examined the 1996 Bill and made seven recommendations, five
of which were included in the 2008 Bill. These were (i) reservation for a
period of 15 years; (ii) including sub reservation for Anglo Indians; (iii)
including reservation in cases where the state has less than three
seats in Lok Sabha (or less than three seats for SCs/STs); (iv) including
reservation for the Delhi assembly; and (v) changing “not less than one-third”
to “as nearly as may be, one-third”.
Two of the recommendations were not incorporated in the 2008 Bill. The first
was for reserving seats in Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils. The second was
for sub-reservation for OBC women after the Constitution extended reservation
to OBCs.
On July 14, 1998, Gita Mukherjee came on Rediff Chat to answer a
volley of questions and confusions regarding the Women’s Reservation Bill. She
openly said that the Bill was being opposed because male MPs were feeling
insecure about their own seats. She said that the reasons being cited by them
are actually a façade. When asked why she was so stuck with the percentage of
33, whereas many were supporting a more practical number-15 or 18 percent, so
that the Bill could be passed smoothly, Geeta Mukherjee was sure that 33% was
the right percentage, since it had been experimented with in the Panchayats,
with great results. Women representatives, according to many official and
unofficial reports, were doing much better than their male counterparts.
According to her, if there were to be 33% reservation in Assemblies and in the
Parliament 1000-1100 women would be elected. She said that in a vast country
like India, were there not so many able women to come into the Legislative
Assemblies and Parliament? The most debatable question which had been raised by
Sharad Yadav-that of the upper class, upper caste ‘parkati mahilayen’, i.e.,
the bob-haired women dominating the Parliament and Assemblies in case the Bill
were to be passed, Gita Mukherjee answered with great alacrity, “but our
experience is different. For example, if this one third reservation is passed,
in many states there are seats which are OBC-dominated. In those states, naturally all the parties will try to put OBC women candidates. So where are
the bal katis in these states? And moreover, Parliament as it stands now, is
mostly men. In our Lok Sabha women's percentage this time is less than 7 per
cent (1998). In that case, all the men who have been elected --were they all
from the upper classes? Secondly, all that is said about women, do the men come
around with a towel around them (i.e., are they all from the lower class)?
Therefore, why this fear about women?”
She had been feeling frustrated because the Congress was backtracking. She said
on Rediff Chat, “It is a million-dollar question (whether the Bill would be
passed) now because in my utter frustration I am hearing that even such parties
who never questioned 33 per cent are now thinking of agreeing to 15 to 18 per
cent. For example, though it has not yet been spelt out by the Congress, the
way they have backtracked by raising the question of OBCs -- which they never
brought earlier -- seems to me ominous. If that be so, then it will be
difficult to pass the bill, because with the BJP, Congress and the Left
together it would have been very easy to pass the bill. Some other MPs
belonging to RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal)and TMC (Trinamool Congress) also had
assured that they would support the original bill. Therefore, a two third
majority was almost guaranteed.”
Family background and Political Career
Geeta Mukherjee went to a school in
Jessore, which is now part of Bangladesh. She was born on 8 January, 1924 as
Geeta Roy Choudhary in a middle-class family, in Calcutta. Her father, Prafulla
Kumar Roychowdhury, was a Rai Bahadur, a title given to him by the British. As
a student, Geeta Mukherjee had joined the Bengal Provincial Students Federation
(BPSF) in 1939, when she was barely 15 years old and was made the Secretary of
the All-India Students Federation in 1947, at the age of 23, remaining in that
capacity up to 1951. Geeta was a student of Bengali literature and got her
graduate degree from the Ashutosh College in Calcutta. In 1942, she had joined
the Communist Party of India, and married Biswanath Mukherjee, who was already
an established communist student leader. Geeta Mukherjee first came into the
limelight during the 1945 postal workers' strike.
On July 29, 1945 she addressed a huge rally, where she was the only woman
student speaker. By 1946 she had become a member of the CPI State Committee at
the early age of 22.
When the Communist Party was banned in 1948, Geeta and Biswanath Mukherjee were
detained without trial for six months in the Presidency Jail, Calcutta. She was
well known for her active role in the student, peasant and women's movements.
For the students of the 1960s, especially women students she stood as a role
model. woman secretariat member of any Indian communist party. Her role was not
limited to that of a Party leader. She became She remained with the CPI after the
Communist Party split in 1964. Geeta Mukherjee was elected to the National
Council of the party in 1978 and to its National Executive in 1981. She was
elected one of the national secretaries of the CPI at the 17th Congress of the
party held in Chennai in 1998. She thus became the first a successful member of
the West Bengal Assembly and a Parliamentarian who was respected for her commitment
to the common people of India. She was elected to the West Bengal Assembly, in
1967, 1968, 1971 and 1972, from Panskura Purba constituency, twice defeating
the Congress, once defeating the Bangla Congress and once the Forward Bloc. In
1978, she was elected to the Lok Sabha from Panskura and continued to represent
that constituency since then. She had defeated the Indian National Congress for
5 consecutive terms and the Trinamool Congress for 2 terms.
Geeta Mukherjee always felt that the voice of the voiceless must reverberate in
the so-called citadels of Parliamentary Democracy, so that the false promises
of corrupt leaders could be exposed to the hilt. So, she kept asking the mass organizations
of the party to keep her posted on the issues and developments in different
areas so that she could raise them in Parliament. But before raising any question,
she ensured that she had a thorough understanding of the subject. She would
read and go into all the details and even talk to cadres so that she was
well-prepared to convince other Parliamentarians too.
Struggle For Women’s Rights
Geeta Mukherjee was part of several
struggles, including those for the cause of women beedi workers. She adopted
strong positions on gender issues, and Amarjeet Kaur, general secretary of the National
Federation of Indian Women ( NFIW), the women's wing of the CPI, said that on
the dowry issue, Geeta Mukherjee was keen to see CPI cadres practicing what
they preached. Geeta Mukherjee was elected Vice-President, National Federation
of Indian Women (NFIW); worked as a Secretariat Member, Women`s International Democratic Federation, Berlin in 1958; became an
Executive Member of NFIW in 1965.She became a Member of the National Commission
for Women in 1988. In 1996. In 1998 she became a Member of the Joint Committee
on the Empowerment of Women and its Sub-Committee on Appraisal of Criminal Laws
relating to Women. After the Maya Tyagi case in Baghpat in 1980, Geeta
Mukherjee, Aziza Imam and Kanak Mukherjee had visited Baghpat along with the home
minister. They had written a formal letter to him, demanding a judicial inquiry
into the incident, which was followed by a furore in the Parliament; later a
judicial inquiry was ordered by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh on 2nd July.
As an MP, Geeta Mukherjee, along with Malini Bhattacharya and Sarla Maheshwari
had also put in a note of dissent with the Joint Select Committee against some
of the provisions in the 1994 PNDT (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Bill,
which were being opposed by women’s organizations; they had demanded that only
Government clinics be permitted to conduct pre-natal tests and all ultrasound
machines and other equipment used for Sex Determination Tests be registered.
A Versatile Leader
Geeta Mukherjee had a multi-faceted
personality. She participated in the Freedom Struggle and was imprisoned
several times for participation in mass movements during the pre-independence
and post-independence periods. She was associated with the C.P.I. as a student
since 1939; was General Secretary, Bengal Provincial Students ‘Federation from
1947 to 1951; was a Member, National Commission on Rural Labour in 1986; a
Member of the National Children`s Board in 1990; a Member of the Press Council of India and a Member, Court of Visva Bharati from
1998 to 1999. She also served as Member of the Committee on Public
Undertakings, Member of the Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes and as Member of the Joint Committee on Criminal Law
(Amendment) Bill, 1980. She was also Chairperson, Joint Committee on Offices of
Profit. She also remained a Member of the Panel of Chairpersons of the Lok Sabha
for several terms.
True to her Ideology and a Diehard Optimist
Geeta Mukherjee's life was an open
book since there were no contradictions in what she spoke and what she
believed. She was a diehard optimist; she was a person with great humility,
simplicity and strong ideological conviction. Her colleagues recall that
despite the split in the Communist Party in 1964, the political upheavals in
Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Geeta
Mukherjee's commitment to the people's democratic revolution remained
undiluted.
She was a believer in international brotherhood of the toiling people and
visited several countries like Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Canada, China,
Germany, U.A.E., U.K., U.S.A., former U.S.S.R., etc.
Writing for Children
Geeta Mukherjee’s childlike innocence
made her think about children. She even wrote some books for children. Bharat Upakatha (Folktales of India) and Chotoder Rabindranath
(Tagore for Children) are two of
them. She was also the author of The Atit Katha Kao She translated in Bengali Bruno Apitz's
classic Naked Among Wolves. She loved poetry and used to read
and recite Kazi Nazrul Islam and Rabindranath Tagore.
Adieu, Geetadi
Geeta Mukherjee, 76, suffered a
massive heart attack on March 4rd, 2000, just as she was preparing to leave for
Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh for a Party programme. On March 3rd, a day before she
passed away, Geeta Mukherjee vehemently protested on the floor of the House
against the Bihar Governor's decision to invite the National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) to form the government in the State. She condemned the action as
"undemocratic".
“A passionate and compassionate political activist, as described by President
K.R. Narayanan, Geeta Mukherjee has left a void not only in the communist
movement but also in the women's and other democratic movements in the
country.” Close friends recalled that though she was unwell, she wanted to
attend Parliament in the wake of the developments in Bihar and the controversy
over the Gujarat government's decision to allow its employees to take part in
the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Glowing tributes were paid to Geetadi as she was fondly remembered. The then
Prime Minister, Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee said, “Mrs. Mukherjee embodied
determination and dedication. She was a shining example of women's empowerment.
Her life shall remain an inspiration for future generations, especially women”.
The CPI national council said ``in the death of Geeta Mukherjee the country has
lost an ardent champion of the toiling masses particularly the women.” And in Hyderabad, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, said,
“Ms. Mukherjee had been in the forefront fighting for the cause of the
empowerment of women and reservations for them in Parliament and State
legislatures.” Comrades in the Party said that she had undergone a heart
surgery in 1990, but that had never deterred her from her tireless endeavor to
serve the cause of the common people.