Routes to political entry: Narratives of women representatives of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly

Women’s political and legislative engagement is essential for the inclusivity of democratic governance institutions. There are many routes through which women enter the political sphere. There has been very low political representation of women in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly (JKLA). The paper examines the different routes through which these few women representatives of the JKLA entered politics, illuminating the intersection of gender, conflict, family and institutional structures in shaping women’s entry in politics in this conflict-ridden region. Using the Feminist Institutionalism theoretical framing, the study investigates how formal rules and informal norms shape the women representatives’ entry into politics in the patriarchal and conflict-ridden region. The paper employed the qualitative methodology. To know about the narratives of the women representatives, in-depth interviews were held with sixteen women members of the JKLA. The finding revealed the four prominent routes of entry through which they entered into Legislative Assembly (1) entry due to leadership vacuum, where women representatives entered politics due to personal tragedies and familial expectations (2) political family background, where women entered politics due to dynastic and familial networks which helped to access candidacy and legitimacy (3) entry due to gender nominations under constitutional provisions providing limited women representation (4) local urban governance participation which acted as the launching pad for higher legislative roles. The paper argues that while political familial, and elite networks continue to dominate the routes to women’s entry in politics, however, the structural reforms, such as the immediate implementation of the Women’s Reservation Bill, is needed to ensure the effective increase in descriptive representation of women in JKLA, rather than showing the tokenistic gestures. This study contributes to the scholarship on gender and political representation in a patriarchal and conflict-ridden region where political representation has been very low.