Legislatures are as much about law-making as constituency-nursing, and large numbers of women here will not necessarily mean a greater focus on women's issues. Yet that is a minor reason. Above all the opposition is to affirmative action of this sort, which is endlesslyself-perpetuating. This much is already evident in some political parties' oneupmanship in demanding reservation within reservation for women from backward and Scheduled Castes and Tribes. It illustrates very well the dangers of affirmative action: it may have a clear beginning but it has no clear end, and it is divisive in an already deeply divided society.

That said, the conduct of the political parties vis-a-vis this Bill has been deeply intriguing and gives pause for thought. Certainly it has not done the politicians of this country proud. When the Bill was first proposed by the Deve Gowda government, such was the professed enthusiasm for it that Gowda said in Parliament, wrongly, that no further debate was called for. S. Bangarappa went a step further to demand reservation within reservation. Here, on the face of it, was a political class standing solidly if misguidedly behind a measure so many see as socially progressive. So what, pray, changed overnight for the Bill to fall through and since then tolanguish despite the BJP professing eagerness to enact it and the Congress and the leftist parties being avowed supporters? The answer consists in five words: the political class's self-serving instincts.

Certainly it is worth wondering why, when every party with the exception of Mulayam Singh Yadav's supports the Bill, it has been held up for two years? Why have such keen supporters of reservation for women in the legislatures failed to reserve ticket distribution for women? The answer: they dare not be politically incorrect enough to say that they do not want it, but they will fight to keep it out anyway because it is against their interests. It is a repetition, in reverse, of the rapid unanimity on the BJP's proposed poll ``reforms,'' some of which are not reforms at all but all of which benefit politicians. When it comes to bread and jam for themselves, the politicians stand united as at no other time. Shame on them. The reasons offered here why the Bill is a bad idea are clearly not being offered bythe politicians, who claim to support the Bill. Logically their argument should be that independent India's history shows that all progressive ideas have had to be imposed legislatively from the top. Waiting for natural progress could mean waiting for ever. Wonder why they are not saying so.