For Immediate Release: June 20, 2026

As leaders and communities of faith representing the Catholic, mainline Protestant, Orthodox, and Evangelical churches of India, we join our voices to the growing national call for the immediate and unconditional implementation of women’s political reservation. Our traditions call us to uphold the dignity of every person and to work for a just and inclusive society and that conviction compels us to speak on this matter of fundamental fairness in our democracy.

India ranks poorly among the world’s parliaments in terms of women’s representation, a fact that should trouble every citizen who believes in the promise of equal participation enshrined in our Constitution. Women make up roughly half of India’s population and electorate, yet occupy a fraction of the seats that decide the nation’s laws and priorities. This is not a small administrative oversight — it is a structural injustice that has persisted across generations.

In 2023, Parliament passed the Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, popularly known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, with overwhelming cross-party support, providing for the reservation of one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies for women. It was received across the country as a moment of historic promise. Yet that promise remains unfulfilled: the Act ties its own implementation to a future census and delimitation exercise, a condition that Members of Parliament, women’s organisations, and civil society questioned even as the Bill was being passed.

This condition has meant that, nearly three years on, the daughters, mothers, and sisters of our congregations and communities remain locked out of the legislative power that was promised to them. When the Government introduced further bills in 2026 to enable delimitation on the latest published census, it once again left the linkage between reservation and delimitation intact postponing, rather than delivering, the change that was promised. Whatever the merits of delimitation reform on its own terms, women’s constitutional right to representation should not be held hostage to it.

We believe that justice delayed is justice denied. A commitment made with overwhelming crossparty support in Parliament in 2023 should not leave women waiting indefinitely. The moral weight of this issue transcends political affiliation, caste, class, and religion — it is a question of whether India’s daughters will have an equal seat at the table where their own future is decided.

We, the National United Christian Forum, therefore join the National Coalition for Women’s Reservation and other citizens’ groups across the country in demanding:

1. That the Government of India introduce a constitutional amendment bill in the forthcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament to delink women’s reservation from the census and delimitation process;

2. The immediate implementation of 33% reservation for women across the existing strength of Parliament and State Assemblies, effective from the next round of elections.

We call upon all Members of Parliament, across party lines, to set aside political calculation and honour the overwhelming cross-party commitment Parliament made to the women of India in 2023. We call upon our own congregations and the wider public to raise their voices in support of this longoverdue reform. Women’s political representation is not a favour to be granted at a convenient hour — it is a right too long deferred.