A blow for gender parity
It took the Delhi High Court to set right last week a largely inexplicable instance of official gender discrimination: it ruled that the Indian Navy must grantpermanent commission to women as well, as the Army and the Air Force had to do following a 2010 order by a different bench of the same court. Until now, women could qualify only for the Navy’s Short Service Commission with a tenure of up to 14 years; this made them ineligible for pension and often unable to find other work they were qualified for, virtually midway through their working lives. Following the latest ruling, women who qualify for permanent commission will be able to work until the age of 54, as their male counterparts do. The 19 women who filed petitions before the court argued that they had received the same training as their male counterparts and worked for a comparable number of years in different departments, but could go no further for the only reason that they were women. The High Court rightly ruled that it could not support any provision that would restrain the professional advancement of women. Grant of permanent commission would allow women to rise in rank along with the men, and gain pay parity.
In the Army, since the grant of permanent commission to women began, 340 women have been granted such positions, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar recently told Parliament. The latest order will open the doors for women in the Navy too. However, the Defence Ministry and the armed forces must go further. For one, the forces must tackle entrenched sexist attitudes towards women that were in evidence when the Army argued before the Supreme Court against the grant of permanent commission for them, saying that junior officers from rural areas would not be willing to accept a woman as a leader in front line situations, or that society was not yet willing to accept women in combat roles. The proportion of women in India’s armed forces and the police forces is low in terms of global comparative figures, and recent research indicates that persistent bias is a strong ground that drives women away from seeking to serve in them. There has been little effort to go the extra distance to increase female representation: India’s first woman in the Army to receive a gallantry award, Lt. Col. Mitali Madhumita, had to move the Supreme Court for permanent commission after she was denied it on the ground that she had earlier turned it down. Suicide rates among women in the forces have also been disproportionately high, and they do not seem to be getting enough support in coping with the dual tasks of handling work and family life. India’s armed forces must do more now to transform themselves into a space of truly equal opportunities.
