The 17th Lok Sabha has seventy-eight women MPs, the highest since independence. Has the increase in women’s participation been meaningful? What narratives of equality and citizenship have framed the issue of electoral representation? Do women MPs carry the burden of shifting welfare policy in a gender-sensitive direction? In this episode of Interpreting India, Shirin Rai joins Shibani Mehta to discuss these questions on gender parity and disparity in the Indian Parliament.Episode ContributorsShirin Rai is an interdisciplinary scholar of international relations, area studies, political economy, history, and comparative politics. She has written extensively on issues of gender, governance and development, and gender and political institutions. Her work within feminist political economy examines gendered regimes of work and survival under globalization, which include the privatization of natural resources and the changing nature of work. Professor Rai is a distinguished research professor of politics and international relations at SOAS, University of London. She is a fellow of the British Academy. In 2022, she was awarded the Distinguished Contribution Prize by the British International Studies Association for her contribution to the promotion of excellence in the discipline of international studies over a substantial period of time. Shibani Mehta is a senior research analyst with the Security Studies Program at Carnegie India. Her research focuses on the India-China boundary dispute with the purpose of analyzing India’s foreign and security policy decisionmaking.--Additional Reading70 Years of Parliament by PRS Legislative ResearchPerforming Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament by Shirin M. Rai and Carole SparyThe Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance, edited by Shirin M. Rai, Milija Gluhovic, Silvija Jestrovic, and Michael SawardExplained | On Reservation for Women in Politics by Radhika SanthanamIndian Women Are Voting More Than Ever. Will They Change Indian Society? by Milan Vaishnav--?️ Check out our podcast, Interpreting India, available now on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iTunes!Home: https://interpreting-india.simplecast.com/Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/51yeOb8SimMIPe2KgIUQ8gApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/interpreting-india/id1476357131YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeXQMWQXRkJXF71nDiX9LhlXiSkhR8JJTAmazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f68d7bd9-1589-410f-b20d-65c94c9b3302/interpreting-india--Carnegie India Socials:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carnegieindia/ (@CarnegieIndia)Twitter: https://twitter.com/CarnegieIndiaWebsite: https://carnegieindia.orgYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CarnegieIndia/