By Maya Madkoriya with additional report by Shamlal Puri in London
Worth Noting:
- Democracy entails many responsibilities which a country’s leadership has to deliver to win the electorate’s hearts when they are permitted freedom of thought, action, and speech within the Constitution’s ambit.
- The development of any country happens only with voting power. Because the constitutional framework of any country only makes that country strong. And the Constitution of every country gives equal civil rights to all the citizens of its land. That is why to run the democratic system smoothly, one has to resort to the electoral process.
- Equal participation of women and men is needed to make the election process fair and successful. It is necessary for everyone of voting age to have the right to cast their votes to make an election successful. Women were given limited suffrage in the late 19th Century.
Voting for their choice of Government is a right of both men and women.
But, alas! This right was available only to men. It took many years for women to fight for their right to cast their vote.
An essential element of democracy was missing for a long time. It took a brave woman in the 19th Century from New Zealand to cast the first stone in the fight for suffrage, as women were denied that right then.
The great American President Abraham Lincoln aptly described democracy in these golden words – Government of the people, for the people and by the people. In this case, not only men but also women,
Democracy is not something to be taken lightly; it’s not child’s play which is twisted and turned to suit the whims of leadership for their convenience and abuse of the electorate – it is where freedom of speech, thought, and action enshrined in the Constitution is permitted without let or hindrance. There is no danger of a knock from the dark agents of security services to arrest
The term democracy is derived from two Greek words – “Demos” and “Kratia”. Here “Demos” means “people”, and “Kratia” means “to rule”.
Democracy entails many responsibilities which a country’s leadership has to deliver to win the electorate’s hearts when they are permitted freedom of thought, action, and speech within the Constitution’s ambit.
The development of any country happens only with voting power. Because the constitutional framework of any country only makes that country strong. And the Constitution of every country gives equal civil rights to all the citizens of its land. That is why to run the democratic system smoothly, one has to resort to the electoral process.
Equal participation of women and men is needed to make the election process fair and successful. It is necessary for everyone of voting age to have the right to cast their votes to make an election successful. Women were given limited suffrage in the late 19th Century.
According to the information on the official website of New Zealand, New Zealand is the first country in the world to give voting rights to women.
Kate Shepherd was a strong woman who fought for voting rights for women in New Zealand. She was the leader of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She initiated a petition demanding voting rights for women and was the first signatory.
Thousands of women followed suit. After three years of hard work, her efforts garnered 32,000 signatures – not a small figure to be sniffed at. Women of those days were steadily waking up to what they had been missing – their right to suffrage.
After her petition was accepted, the bill was introduced on 8 September 1893. And, on 19 September, Lord Glasgow signed the bill, making it law. And thus, New Zealand became the first country in the world, which gave women the power to vote.
The new Century had dawned, and looking at New Zealand’s pioneering initiative, the world’s women began to take note of the gross injustice being done by depriving them of their right to vote. Democracy was not meant just for men. Nine years later, in 1902, Australia gave voting power to women.
Scandinavia did not want to be left behind. Finland became the third global country to give voting power to women in 1906. Norway followed suit seven years later – in 1913 – granting their women voting power. In 1915, Denmark gave women voting power.
The winds of women’s suffrage swept across the Atlantic when In 1917, Canada gave its women voting power. In 1920, the United States, the land of Abraham Lincoln, enfranchised their women. This is the country that boasts of its democracy!
The rest of Europe, known as the cradle of democracy, was also coming to terms with the fact that they had ignored their women folk, and the time was ripe to accord them their right to vote.
In 1918 Austria, Germany, Poland, and Russia gave women voting power. In 1919 Netherlands gave voting power to women. After that, in 1921, Sweden gave women voting power.
In 1928, Britain and Ireland gave women voting power. In 1931, Spain gave women the vote. In 1934, Turkey, today considered part of Europe, gave women voting power. In 1944, France gave women voting power. After this, Italy gave the vote to women in 1945.
As late as 1971, Switzerland gave its women the right to vote.
In 1947, Argentina, Japan, India, and Pakistan also gave women the right to vote. After that, in 1949, China gave voting power to women. Colombia gave the vote to women in 1954.
Colonial Africa began to take note of the rest of the developed world, giving power to their women and stepping forward to copy them. In 1930, South Africa, under British colonial rule, gave women voting power.
That enfranchisement was oiled the racist apartheid policy when it was imposed by the Boers in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. Apartheid was the racial segregation under the all-white Government of South Africa, which dictated that non-white South Africans (a majority of the population) were required to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities, and contact between the two groups
The embers of apartheid and separatist policy also crossed the border to the then Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, which gave its women the right to vote in 1957 when the colonial Government was under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Garfield Todd. This was done under the order of London, which controlled the power machine in that part of southern Africa.
Ian Douglas Smith, the one-time Prime Minister until 1964, answering to the Government in London, changed the political map of British colonialism with his Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI).
He turned hostile against his colonial masters in London, effectively seizing power from London. The renegade leader turned to apartheid South Africa, and his country suffered rampant racism. He became a pariah for the rest of Africa, and the only ones that supported him were the Portuguese in Mozambique and the apartheid Boers of South Africa and Angola.
In 1962, Algeria gave voting power to women, followed by Morocco in 1963 and Libya in 1964.
Other countries did not want to be left out. Malaysia in 1957, Iran in 1963, and Ecuador in 1967 gave women the right to vote.
In 1972, Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, gave voting power to women immediately after it won the bloody war against West Pakistan.
Surprisingly, some countries have only enfranchised their women in recent years.
Jordan in 1974, Portugal in 1976, Portugal; in Namibia in 1989 granted voting rights to their women.
In the 1990s and 2020s, some countries gave voting power to women.
In 1993, Kazakhstan and Moldova gave voting power to women.
In 2005, women were also given voting power in Kuwait. In 2006, the United Arab Emirates also gave voting power to women.
In 2011, Saudi Arabia also gave voting power to women.
Afghanistan is one sad example of draconian controls on women. In 2021, the Kabul Government allowed their women “temporary” and limited voting rights. The renegade die-hard Islamists who toppled the democratic Government still pose a threat to women’s suffrage and can block this right at their whim.
One would hardly call that country a democracy, even if it is masquerading as one. There are many such countries on the world map which pretend to be democratic such as Pakistan, Syria, and Turkmenistan, but in reality, they are dictatorships in disguise. There are also direct dictatorships in Communist one-party countries such as North Korea, China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and Eritrea.
Their women folk are the victims of disenfranchisement. Voting is not the choice, but the right of every citizen – men and women.
Additional report by SHAMLAL PURI, our Associate Publisher and Senior Editor for the UK based in London. Photos by SHAMLAL PURI/Courtesy
The writer: Mrs Maya Madkoriya, is an experienced practising lawyer at the Jabalpur High Court in India, and an author, She is a passionate advocate of women’s empowerment and rights.