Women’s Political Participation in Assam: With Special Reference to Assam Legislative Assembly Election

Abstract

Assam is a diverse and culturally rich state located in the eastern part of India. Assam is famous for the one-horned rhino found in Kaziranga, Digboi, the first oil refinery in Asia, and for its tea gardens. In the smooth functioning of democracy, mass political participation from each and every section of society, including women, is very essential. In Assam, women actively participated in India’s independence movement and in various agitations after independence. However, their active political participation was not impressive after independence. Despite constituting approximately half of the state's population, women in Assam remain significantly under-represented in formal power structures. From the first general election of 1952 to date, women's participation in electoral politics reveals that, in spite of the female voting percentage increasing, women candidates rarely exceed 11% of the total contestants in the Assam Legislative Assembly. In this article, I tried to discuss the complex landscape of women’s political participation in Assam, and also in Assam’s politics, it not only requires legislative quotas like the Women’s Reservation Bill but also a fundamental shift in party cultures and socio-economic support systems to bridge the gap between women as “party workers" and "voters" and women as "political leaders".