On August 1, a bench of two Supreme Court judges, including the Chief Justice of India, disposed of a writ petition on bringing political parties under the purview of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
The POSH Act, as the legislation is called, applies to all workplaces, whether public or private. It provides a broad, all-inclusive interpretation for the formerly restricted employer-employee relationships to cover domestic workers, daily wagers, contract workers, or even unpaid volunteers. Moreover, the scope of a ‘workplace’ is also considerably expanded to cover households, informal work environments, work-related travel, etc, and enfolds within its ambit, even outside visitors at work.
The applicability of the Act on political parties did not come into question until the High Court of Kerala observed in 2022 that parties need not constitute an Internal Complaints Committee (IC). The Court was hearing a petition filed by the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), a collective of women working in the Malayalam film industry, formed after the 2017 sexual assault of a female actor in a moving car in Kochi.
“...political parties, which are not having any employer-employee relationship with its members and which are not carrying on with any private venture, undertaking, enterprises, institution, establishment etc. in contemplation of a 'workplace' as defined under section 2(o)(ii) of Act, 2013, are not liable to make any Internal Complaints Committee,” the High Court said.
The Supreme Court later said, in a separate writ petition, that the matter is in the hands of policymakers and the parliament, not the court. “The prayer made in the petition is exclusively within the competence of the legislature or within the domain of policy of the executive. As such, we are not inclined to entertain,” observed Chief Justice BR Gavai.
This is a setback for several women who are on the brink of entering politics or succeeding in this otherwise male-dominated workplace. In December 2024, the NETRI Foundation, India’s first incubator and aggregator for women in the political ecosystem, made a representation to the ECI, citing how most women prefer taking behind-the-scenes roles as visibility comes with trolling and harassment, now exacerbated by social media platforms.
This was followed up with two consecutive letters until April 2025, but no response was received.
The Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to choose their own profession, but freedom becomes a hollow promise when it comes at the cost of personal safety. The question we must confront here is stark: Are women truly free to choose the profession, occupation, and workplace they want?
A 2014 report published by the UN Women and the Centre for Social Research on Violence against Women in Politics in South Asian countries revealed that 90% of women refrain from active involvement in politics on account of fear of violence and abuse.
“Nearly 50% of respondents said they faced verbal abuse, and 45% said physical violence and threats were common, particularly true during election campaigns. 67% of women politicians said perpetrators were male contestants, and 58% were party colleagues. Violence and harassment at the hands of colleagues is a reason why we see only women from political families in politics,” the report said.
Furthermore, their analysis of the period between 2003 and 2013 uncovered that 45% of women candidates in India were on the receiving end of physical violence and threats.
The glaring absence of gender-disaggregated data on membership in political parties in India is notable.
In November 2024, the BJP successfully onboarded 111 million members, marking a historical political moment for any political party. As of January 2025, the BJP in Bengal had added 5 million members, with 55% of these members being women, exceeding 2.5 million. In 2025, even a conservative estimate of 30% women in the total membership of the BJP results in over 35 million women as its party members.
In October 2024, the Indian National Congress (INC) added over 0.2 million women to its Mahila Congress wing through an online membership drive. This is in addition to the total membership of 55 million people in the party (2023). With the digital membership now launched, the party reports that 42% of its members in the 18-40 age group are digital members. The Telangana Congress accounts for 2.5 million women in their membership.
In total, this also confirms about 23 million women in the INC.
The CPI(M) is the only party to report gendered data of its total membership of 10 million at approximately 20% in 2024, making it 2 million women, and the women’s composition of it to be 20%. It is also the only party that has constituted an ICC as mandated by the PoSH Act 2013, and made it public on its webpage.
In a country with over 2000+ political parties, and at least 10 national parties, documenting ballpark data on women’s political party membership from only three parties is severe under-reporting. However, it is still 60 million women who stand to remain affected by a system that doesn’t serve dignity or safety to them.
According to the UN report, one out of three women has experienced at least one form of gender based violence in their lifetime. Many women remain invisible in this reporting, fearing victim-blaming and shaming. In politics, the fear extends beyond shame, as reporting can lead to active disadvantage and punishment.
As power is deeply entrenched with the men in all political parties, and women are expected to be rewarded for their best behaviour, they have no incentive or protection to file complaints. The system rewards silence and compliance.
In 2022, Dr Angkita Dutta, who raised the issue of misconduct by her party colleague, ultimately had to resign from the Congress Party that launched a defamation campaign against her and paid little to no heed to her complaint. Women’s complaint of harassment at the hands of male party colleagues is represented as the rival party’s smear campaign against the party in question. Swati Maliwal, AAP’s only woman MP, has made allegations against Arvind Kejriwal’s senior official, a case in point.
In the absence of grievance redressal mechanisms such as ICCs mandated by the PoSH Act for all other workplaces, these issues become sensationalised, erasing any scope of empathy towards the complainant in the process.
These handful of examples serve as a deterrent for other women to come forward, leaving little space to present anecdotal evidence behind the numbers.
The findings from the UN Women’s 2014 report on Violence against Women in Politics reveal a critical disconnect between women's political engagement and representation. Although female voter participation and candidate nominations have grown in all three countries studied, women's presence in national assemblies has diminished.
Violence emerges as the key explanatory factor: it prevents political participation for over 60% of women and damages the political resolve of nearly 90% of women surveyed. Current legal frameworks prove insufficient, with none of the three countries maintaining dedicated legislation to address violence against women in political settings.
International evidence demonstrates that comprehensive legal protections correlate with reduced violence and lower societal tolerance for such behaviour.
The SC’s suggestion to urge the legislature to bring a law on this matter, or for a handful of women parliamentarians to introduce a Private Member Bill, is empty at best. The last Private Member Bill was passed in 1970, testifying to how it remains a mere tool used for advocacy by parliamentarians.
The very men who dominate the political profession took nearly three decades to pass legislation reserving seats for women, and only when women's vote share became too significant to ignore. This delay reveals how reluctant those in power are to share space, even when constitutionally mandated.
When most women suffer violence at the hands of party colleagues, expecting these same institutions to champion legislation that would scrutinise their behaviour is naive.
Political parties have long evaded this by claiming they are not a “workplace”. Self-regulation rarely works when the regulators are often the perpetrators. Therefore, there is little reason to expect male-led systems, which are part of the problem, to change the legislation that would allow more scrutiny on their behaviour.
Here lies the crux of the solution: the current law is sufficient and already covers political parties in its existing form. The POSH Act doesn't need expansion—it needs proper interpretation and implementation.
But recent judicial developments have been disappointing. The Kerala High Court's narrow interpretation of the existing law undermines women's safety, while the SC bench's disposal of a writ petition seeking to bring political parties under the POSH Act feels like a missed opportunity for justice.
During a recent engagement with the German Chancellor's office, I explored the risks women face in political careers across different contexts. While challenges exist globally, the scale and intensity of violence and harassment that women face in South Asian politics appear particularly acute.
Germany's experience suggests that cultural and institutional factors can create safer political environments, but this requires deliberate effort and systemic change.
In 2012, Bolivia became the first Latin American nation to criminalise violence against women in politics through Law No 243. Kenya, which boasts the highest representation of women in parliament thanks to reservation measures, has gone further by establishing a Political Parties Disputes Tribunal under the Political Parties Act 2011.
In the United Kingdom, the Equality Act 2010 extends its protections to political parties. Meanwhile, Peru, Mexico, and Costa Rica have pending bills in their legislatures aimed at addressing violence against women in politics.
The solution is clear, and it doesn't require new legislation, but courage– from the judiciary, political parties, and society.
Women's political participation isn't just a women's issue; it's a democracy issue. When we allow fear and violence to determine who can participate in governance, we undermine the very foundations of representative democracy.
Kanksshi is the founder of the NETRI Foundation, an incubator for women in politics, a policy researcher, and a TEDx speaker.
Views expressed are the author’s own.