Women leaders find favour, but not votes in India, say Pew survey

India has a long history of women holding political power — from the 1966 election of Indira Gandhi, one of the world’s first woman prime ministers, to other well-known figures, such as J Jayalalitha and Mamata Banerjee. A Pew survey done in 2019 and 2020 reflects this comfort with women in politics. Overall, a small majority of respondents express the opinion that, in general, women and men make equally good political leaders (55%). Some Indians (14%) even say women tend to make better political leaders than men. Only a quarter of Indians say that men generally make better political leaders than women.

There’s more. Men are more likely than women to believe men are superior politicians (29% vs 21%, respectively), while women are slightly more likely to favor the abilities of women leaders (16% vs 13%). Younger Indian adults (ages 18 to 34) and college graduates are somewhat more likely than their elders and those with less formal education to say women and men make equally good political leaders.

But the results of the just concluded Assembly elections in five states do not reflect these beliefs. On an average, voters elected only 11 per cent women to represent them, with an overwhelming 89 per cent still men.

The Pew survey did not cover Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur. However, in Punjab, it found 51 per cent agreeing that men and women make equally good political leaders. In Uttar Pradesh this figure was as high as 62 per cent. But in both states, not only were few women candidates fielded but those who managed to win were even fewer, as a gender analysis of winning candidates conducted by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) shows.

Source: Pew Survey on Indian Gender Roles (2022) ADR Gender analysis (Assembly elections 2022)