India, April 17 -- The arguments being advanced against expanding seats to accommodate women's reservation are largely intellectually inconsistent. They rely on selective reasoning that collapses under minimal scrutiny.

First, the claim that increasing the number of seats will make Parliament hefty and financially burdensome is a weak deflection. Democratic representation cannot be reduced to a cost-benefit calculation when the core issue is structural exclusion. By that logic, any expansion of representation-whether for new states, marginalised groups, or population adjustments-would be deemed wasteful. This argument is less about fiscal prudence and more about preserving existing power hierarchies.

Second, the southern states argument...