A ceiling of glass was probably shattered when on July 24th 2020, Ministry of Defence issued a formal letter granting permanent commission to women officers in the Indian Army. The fight sure is a long way to go but this truly is a cause of celebration. Position of Women in army has always been glossed over with them being deemed as ‘unfit’ and a burden, of course. Not to mention the Delhi High Court ruling in the litigants’ favour 10 years ago, when a written note was submitted to the Court pointing at the “physiological limitations” of women officers, saying that these (physiological limitations) were great challenges for women officers to meet the exigencies of service. However, that hurdle too, was overcome on February 17, when the Supreme Court of India passed a ruling that enabled the women to serve as army commanders. The court also extended permanent service which has only applied to men so far, to all the women officers, which means that women will be allowed to command entire military units, however, they will still not be permitted to serve in army combat units, like the infantry or artillery corps.
The misogyny was called out in a 54-page judgment. The Supreme Court noted that women officers of the Indian Army had brought many laurels to the army force, it said, “The time has come for a realisation that women officers in the Army are not adjuncts to a male dominated establishment whose presence must be ‘tolerated’ within narrow confines”.
Indeed, the court’s strong statements against the gender stereotypes employed by the government come as a welcome relief, ensuring that women can hold permanent commissions in the army recognises the equal effort and service that they put in. However, to brand this move as “feminist” would be fallacious at best. While the court’s decision creates a bridge of parity between men and women, it also leaves a deeper questions aside about the army itself and the forms of masculinity that it creates and supports. Moreover, while promoting a liberal understanding of gender equality, it brushes over the fact by the armed forces that disproportionately harm women, such as the use of sexual violence to control and subdue certain populations.
To succeed within the army, women are forced to deride their femininity and work harder than men to establish parity in the eyes of their counterparts. They are forced to blend in while standing out for their exceptional work in order to be taken seriously. Sneha Susan Itty, a Major in the Indian army, explained this in a 2015 interview with the Hindustan Times, she said “The training killed all my femininity. I was serving while I was pregnant and not for a day was I given any relaxation, nor did I ask for it.” However, the same statement can be found conflicting, if compared with Lt GenMadhuriKanitkar in a recent interview with Femina India, she said,“The armed forces predominantly have male workers, but not dominated by gender stereotypes. All my roles, be it a soldier, a teacher, a doctor or for that matter, my appointment today as Deputy Chief Integrated Defence Staff (Medical) has nothing to do with gender”.She further added that she cannot remember a single instance where she had to fight for her ‘rights’ on grounds of gender.
In 2017, India’s Ministry of Defence revealed that a dozen women officers in the armed forceslodged complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination in the preceding two years. The number is significant given the overall trend of low reporting of sexual harassment generally and the fact that women constitute a minuscule minority in the overwhelmingly male-dominated Indian military.
On this very issue, UN’sSpecial Rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjooalso said, “[W]omen living in militarised regions, such as Jammu and Kashmir and the North-eastern states, live in a constant state of siege and surveillance, whether in their homes or in public. Information received through both written and oral testimonies highlighted the use of mass rape, allegedly by members of the State security forces, as well as acts of enforced disappearance, killings and acts of torture and ill-treatment, which were used to intimidate and to counteract political opposition and insurgency.”
With such facts surfacing, the fact that widespread hyper-masculinity, sexism and sexual violence in which the military is painted, will not correct itself through the involvement of women in commanding positions but calls for critical engagement with the institution of armed forces, which goes beyond a liberal imperial notion of “gender equality”.
