And still in India: The United Women's Front, India first all-women political party

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2008 Part 7: Women in India Form Their Own Political Party

DELHI, India (WOMENSENEWS)--It is a mellow December morning in Delhi. Soft sunlight filters through the trees that line the boulevards of the city's stately Krishna Menon Marg neighborhood.

Suman Krishan Kant, however, is oblivious to the tranquillity outside the windows of her well-appointed bungalow.

The prominent social activist is reviewing and paying bills while files wait on the table for her attention. The elegant waiting room outside is beginning to fill in with men and women hoping to meet with her and enlist her advocacy with government agencies on their behalf. One of them, for instance, is a widow who hopes Kant will help her application for an increase in her pension.

It is the beginning of another working day for the president of the country's all-women's political party.

In October, Kant, the widow of former vice president Krishan Kumar Kant, joined with other influential women to launch the United Women's Front to address issues such as women's illiteracy, early marriage and tokenism in parliament, where women hold just 8 percent of seats. To qualify for official party status, the group had to muster at least 100 members and pay about $300 in registration fees.

"Women have simply not been getting the kind of governance they deserve," says Kant. "Take Delhi for example. It has a female chief minister, yet it is one of the most dangerous places for women . . . All this is precisely because we do not have enough women in decision-making and in the political process. A few women here and there cannot make much of a difference."

Prem Ahluwalia is a journalist who specializes in women's issues and directs the Dehli-based Institute for South Asian Women, which seeks to foster ties among women in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the Maldives. She is also the United Women Front's national general secretary.

"It is for the first time in the history of India that a national political party has been formed by women," she says. "In fact it is the only party of women in the world. We need to ensure that the issues of priority concern to half of its population remain in the forefront of the pressing issues on India's national agenda."MORE