Indian politics is inherently anti-women. There is no sugar-coating this perturbing reality. While on one hand, India is now celebrating the rise of its woman voter, on the other hand, it simultaneously continues to deny women adequate representation and genuine empowerment in the political milieu, keeping power as almost the sole preserve of men.

One only has to study the nature of the latest development in the soft politics arena—the advent of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)—to understand how innately, even if subconsciously, averse we remain to giving women equal opportunities. The CJP, which started as an online satire platform, quickly went viral because of its appeal to the youth and the issues it managed to touch upon, thereafter building upon that virality to attempt to make itself an offline phenomenon as well.

However, while touting itself as a youth movement, the CJP is instead very much a largely male-led crusade. Dominated by men, who are not shying away from speaking the language of our deep-seated misogyny, this movement is as anti-women in its make and culture as most of the traditional political outfits.

From the lead opposition Congress to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, from the more recent Aam Aadmi Party to the age-old Communists, political platforms in India have remained intrinsically and decisively gendered and have functioned with a predominantly male perspective.

The CJP, even as a soft political platform that claims to represent today’s generation, seems to be perpetuating this dismal tradition.

The CJP sexism

Consider this. An online satire platform was started by a man, Abhijeet Dipke. Given how it catches the imagination of India’s younger generations, he quickly decides to take the big leap to try to become an offline movement centred mainly around the youth with an anti-establishment message.

Dipke then goes on to appoint three spokespersons, the first and only officebearers of the party. All three are men. Journalist Saurav Das, journalist-filmmaker Vijeta Dahiya, and former management consultant Ashutosh Ranka are picked to be the movement’s voices and faces, leading its campaign.

The irony of this isn’t lost. A youth movement, claiming to stand for modern times and represent today’s generation, has no woman officebearer, no woman faces, and no woman as a leading voice. When faced with criticism over this glaring gender imbalance, Dipke claimed that while they had approached some women, they declined the offer to avoid online trolling and threats.

This explanation simply does not cut any ice. Women in India today are hardly afraid to be at the forefront of political discourse, raising their voice and making their stance clear, even in the face of online abuse. To claim no women were willing to be a prominent and vocal part of this movement is a bit rich, and frankly, reeks more of lack of intent and effort than of genuine compulsion.

The hypocrisy of it? The CJP wants the Parliament to ensure 50 percent reservation for women, while not making space for them in its own system.

To make matters worse, spokesperson Dahiya later went on to make a deeply patriarchal and completely tone-deaf statement, claiming women were not engaging with the platform because they were busy with “‘make-up’ and ‘shopping’.

For what hopes to be a meaningful anti-establishment rebellion, the CJP has turned into a revolution with as misogynistic and facile an understanding of women as the rest of India’s political establishment.

How traditional parties have denied women space

To be fair, blaming the CJP alone is hardly prudent. This platform, after all, is very much a product of India’s socio-political landscape, which has always been and continues to be unapologetically patriarchal.

Consider some facts. In a country of 29 states, only one state has a woman as its chief minister. In a 543-member Lok Sabha, barely 14 percent are women. According to PRS Legislative Research, no state has more than 20 percent women’s representation in its Assembly. In nearly eighty years since Independence, the country has had only one woman prime minister. The much hyped women’s reservation legislation—in conversation since the late 1980s—continues to hang fire, mired in politics and opportunism.

Yes, women have now caught up with men when it comes to voting, closing the voter turnout gap that had lingered for decades. Yes, women voters are now key to elections, with political parties vying to woo this electorate. Yes, women today are at the heart of policymaking, especially when it comes to welfare delivery. And yes, political parties are falling over each other to prove how keen they are to implement 33 percent reservation for women in Parliament and state assemblies.

These, however, are all driven by electoral compulsions, political opportunism and a sense of the men being benevolent in giving women some space. There is no genuine intent to concede actual power to women, ensure meaningful empowerment and allow them to rise to the top of the pyramid.

For all his talk about nari shakti and women empowerment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has barely ensured women are trusted with power in his own party. The BJP today directly rules 14 states and leads the government in 22 states and Union Territories as part of the National Democratic Alliance, and yet has only one woman chief minister. In its Union Council of Ministers, there are merely two women cabinet ministers. And even while pushing the women’s reservation legislation, the BJP government has surreptitiously linked it to an extremely contentious issue like delimitation to serve its political interests, thereby derailing the process and sacrificing women’s interests at the altar of opportunistic gains.

The Congress isn’t much better. In power for a straight decade from 2004 to 2014, it did precious little to get the women’s reservation legislation passed. Its track record in giving election tickets to women is as dismal as that of other parties, and when it came to choosing a successor, the Gandhi family was quick to anoint the male heir, Rahul Gandhi, with his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra having to patiently wait for her turn in the green room.

In the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s Central Committee, women's representation is only 17 percent, and there are merely two women in its 15-member Politburo.

Even newer parties like the Aam Aadmi Party have followed a similar trope. Arvind Kejriwal, when deciding to resign as chief minister of Delhi amid the Delhi excise policy case, anointed a woman—Atishi—as his successor. The catch? Atishi was supposed to be a mere rubber stamp, making headlines when she refused to sit on the chief minister’s chair when assuming office, leaving it vacant for Kejriwal.

This isn’t about one party or another. The truth is, there has been no real space for women in Indian politics, and that trend continues to linger. The Cockroach Janta Party is but a manifestation of this deep-seated malaise.