Nuancing Feminism in the Indian bar to make it more equal – Towards an Intersectional approach

IN DECEMBER 2025, the Supreme Court of India, led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant passed a historic decision, reserving thirty percent posts in all State Bar Councils for women. The Court passed these directions in a Public Interest Litigation, pointing out that the percentage of women representatives in the bar council was far smaller than the number of women practicing at the Bar. 

The Court’s view was motivated to rectify the skewed ratio that resulted from gender bias, of the male-dominated bar against women candidates, which made it tough for women to compete without reservation with men in bar elections. The enthusiasm with which women lawyers have welcomed this opening, is evident from the large number of women who have stood as candidates in the Bar Council Election. For instance, since the 1960s, the Delhi Bar Council has only elected two women lawyers. But last February almost 80 women candidates contested and 30 percent of the Bar Council will consist of women for the first time in India’s history. 

In many ways, a similar change has unfolded as far as the designation of women lawyers as senior advocates by various High Courts and the Supreme Court is concerned. Over the past four decades, most courts had designated only two or so women. This shift did not occur through reservations, but through the Supreme Court’s decision in Indira Jaising v. Supreme Court of India (2017) (‘Indira Jaising - I’), which set up, for the first time, an objective marking framework to assess candidates applying for designation (although on subjective satisfaction of the Permanent Committee). Following Indira Jaising - I,  one witnessed a significant increase in the number of women being designated. In subjective systems, women tend to be more invisible and vulnerable to gender bias. However, one could argue, the more objective the selection system, the less the bias finds space to operate. 

Enthused by these successes, there is a clamouring from the women’s bar to ensure that elevation to the bench is made more inclusive by ensuring that more women are elevated to both the High Court and Supreme Court. This would not just encourage women professionals but would also ensure that the justice system benefits from diversity. 

While this process of gender equity in Courts at all levels is a laudable tribute to the promise of our great Constitution, which has promised all citizens a right to equality to ensure that no one is discriminated solely on the ground of gender, one does observe with some discomfort that a significant majority of the women who are able to partake in the opportunities that have expansively emerged are  Hindu Upper Caste, upper middle class women, often belonging to legal families or having powerful male mentors. On the other hand, women lawyers from marginalised castes, lower middle-class families and minority communities, though managing to survive in the profession through sheer grit and hard work, have not been able to thrive or benefit from this opening space for women lawyers created by judgments of the Supreme Court and changing attitudes of the Collegium and Full Court towards women.

Embedding intersectionality in the assertion for representation

Kimberlie Crenshaw, an American civil rights advocate and scholar, in 1989, coined the term ‘intersectionality’ in feminism, which envisages a framework for understanding how women’s experiences of oppression are shaped by intersecting gender, race, social, ability and sexuality identities. In the Indian context, we can also consider caste and religious identity as compounding features of social oppression of women professionals.