Women in Indian Politics

Recent years have witnessed a concern at the marginal presence of women in Politics. The concern has been voiced through international for a on the one hand and national and local level women groups and academics on the other. The involvement of women in politics in now regarded as an important factor for a healthy democracy. No democracy can be termed as healthy, if half on the population does not participate in the political process. It is also being increasingly realized that participation as mere voters is not enough. It has to be followed by large scale participation in the policy-formulation and decision making process. This book is an attempt at analyzing the problems related to women s political participation in the Indian context. Gender and patriarchy have been used as the conceptual framework. The environmental factors-socio-economic, political and cultural-are in some way or the other, directly related to the norms of gender and patriarchy .