The Janata Dal working president Sharad Yadav has opened up a can of worms by his opposition to the Women's Reservation Bill in its present form. He has defied the party line and has angered the women's groups. But there is an uneasy feeling in political circles that Yadav, an OBC MP from Bihar, is only expressing views that many MPs hold privately but do not dare to express publicly for fear of being considered politically incorrect.The combative and blunt Yadav, who is the probable candidate for president of the JD if Laloo Yadav agrees to bow out, could not hide his contempt for what he considers bhadralok (elite) womenhe has apologised for his earlier comment on women with bobbed hairwho are out of touch with the reality of Asli Bharat during his interview with Coomi Kapoor. Excerpts:

The CPI(M) has said that there will be no further debate on the Women's Reservation Bill.

I will comment on the CPI(M)'s view at the United Front Steering Committee and not outside.

The Prime Minister has already declared that there should be a national debate on the issue. My view is that the reservation quota for women should also be on the basis of social and educational backwardness classes.

You have to keep in mind that the Indian society is basically divided into four. There are the dalits, the intermediate castes including farmers, the bhardralok (elite) who have for thousands of years looked down on those who do manual labour, and the minorities. All the four sections should be given equal representation in the women's reservation in proportion to their population.

But women's organisations feel that the reservation for women should not be along caste lines, since women as a group are under-privileged compared to men.

There are some women who are more socially and educationally deprived. Look at the present Parliament, there are only 39 women out of whom only three belong to the backward castes. There are 22 or 23 MPs from the bhandralok.

This shows that the elite women are over-represented according to their population while the backward caste women are under-represented.

But won't women MPs represent all women?

The elite women do not understand the problems of women living in the villages and the slums. For example, in the last session, Sushma Swaraj of the BJP took up the issue of 250 families in Delhi being evicted because of a Supreme Court order and she was supported by all the major parties. But when a dalit MP like Bhagwati Devi raised an issue concerning one crore Baheliya women who were being deprived of their means of livelihoodwhich is trapping some species of birds -- no woman MP came forward to support her.

There has been considerable resentment over your remark in Parliament that women who have bobbed their hair did not understand the problem of the women of rural India.

I concede that this was not proper. I have publicly apologised. How a person lives and or what he wears is a matter of individual freedom.

Since both your wife and daughter have short hair, weren't they angry at your remark.

They have the right to be angry.The Left parties which are spearheading the movement for the Women's Reservation Bill in its present form have only bhandralok women MPs

Even we have only one backward-caste MP, Kanti Singh. The BJP has one Uma Bharati and the SJP has Phoolan Devi. I am talking of the society and you are specifying parties.

What do you mean when you say that Bhandralok women cannot empathise with Indian womanhood.

For Indian women, the ideal is Sita and Savitri not Draupadi. Draupadi had 99 per cent of the qualities whereas Sita and Savitri had 100 per cent of the good qualities. Draupadi did not have that one per cent of loyalty which was there in the other two, she had five husbands. Draupadi is the real heroine of the Maharabharat not Krishna. She was the first to say woman is not the property of men. But there is not a single temple built for her.

If reservation comes about, it is feared that women MPs may be a front for their husbands and fathers.

Ours is a male-dominated society and women generally reflect the views of the men in their houses.

One of the three OBC women MPs, Uma Bharati, has retracted and claims she is now against caste-based women's reservations.

What can I do?

Do you feel that the backward-caste MPs from all parties have the same view as you on the subject?

I have never said that I have the majority support. I am putting my individual view point.

Are you standing for presidentship of the Janata Dal?

Whether I stand or not stand is not a proper question. It is the prerogative of the party's electoral college.

Isn't this the first time you will be having an election in your party?

The JD keeps taking decisions through so-called ``consensus.''How can you say that? When V.P. Singh resigned there was an election. Hukam Deo Narain Yadav and Jaipal Reddy withdrew and so S.R. Bommai was elected. You cannot call it consensus, they had filled up the nomination forms.

Isn't it strange that there has been no organisational election for the last six years?

It is a matter of regret. We have been sleeping for six years. Now we are awake. The Electon Commission has woken us up.

You are such a senior member of the Janata Dal but you are not a minister.

Mahatma Gandhi was nothing, Jaya Praskah Narain too. At least, I am an ad-hoc committee member. I was charge-sheeted in the hawala case so the UF felt that since we are committed to fight corruption I should step aside.

But now Laloo on the other hand says he has no intention of stepping down because of the fodder case.

Laloo is correct. When no charge-sheet has been filed, the question is hypothetical. I hold that he has been wrongly sentenced.

But all this talk of maintaining standards in public life by following the norm of stepping down and keeping away till proved innocent....

It is not the norm, it has never been so. If a member of the UF has asked Laloo to step down, we will answer him in the UF steering committee.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.