Karan Thapar

A lot has been written about the Supreme Court (SC)’s recent ruling on women in the Indian Army, but I wonder how many people have a clear idea of the full picture? The assumption that, hereafter, the Army will treat women officers as the equal of men is only partially correct. In critical areas it is, in fact, wrong. When you grasp this, you’ll understand the reservations which the SC dismissed, but many serving and retired officers stand by.

First, a few critical facts. Women officers comprise less than 4% of the Army officer corps. In the Navy, it is nearly 7%; in the Air Force, it has crossed 13%. So the Army is the laggard. This needed rectification.

Now women can serve in all 10 non-combat units. Since 1992, the eight support and services arms as well as the Army Education Corps and the Judge Advocate General’s Branch have been opened up to women at different times. But they can only serve on short service commissions. That gives them a 10-year tenure, extendable to 14. It also means they retire before reaching command position levels i.e. the rank of a colonel or above, and they do not get pensions.

This is what the SC has rectified. In all the 10 non-combat units, women officers will now get permanent commissions. Those presently on short service commissions will also get the same right. Second, women officers will no longer be restricted to staff appointments. Hereafter, they are eligible to compete, at par with male officers, for command appointments. It, therefore, follows they are eligible for further promotion to higher ranks. This is undoubtedly the most significant aspect of the SC’s judgment.

However, this doesn’t mean you’ll see a surge in women brigadiers, major generals and lieutenant generals. The Army has a sharply narrowing pyramid structure and just as an increasingly diminishing proportion of men rise upwards so, too, will be the case with women. Nonetheless, a ceiling has been broken and the sound of shattering glass is discernible.

That said and done, the Army’s combat units remain closed to women. These are the infantry, mechanised infantry, armoured corps and artillery. This means women will not be direct participants in war. The SC did not consider this because it wasn’t part of the appeals before it. Yet this is where the reservations of serving and retired Army officers carry a fair measure of validity.

It’s not just that our jawans come from conservative rural backgrounds where acceptance of women as superiors or commanders is absent, if not resisted; you also have to bear in mind the actual conditions which jawans and officers experience during war. For instance, they sleep under tanks and armoured cars or huddle together in trenches. Their objections can be questioned on moral grounds but you can’t overrule them in a way that risks efficacy in battle, particularly when India faces threats on two borders. This is why the Army wants to make haste slowly.

With time this will change. Women serve as fighter pilots in the Air Force and perform combat roles on naval ships. It’s just that in the Army combat includes the possibility of hand-to-hand fighting.

Finally, two things we mustn’t forget. Women are not about to become jawans. The SC ruling concerns officers not other ranks. The second point has been overlooked by many commentators. If women are to rise to command positions, they must have the same rigorous training as men. So if male officers have to pass through the National Defence Academy and graduate from the Indian Military Academy that, presumably, must be the norm for women too. Just as gender and physiology were wrongly used to exclude they cannot now be disregarded either. As the SC said: “Soldiers must have the physical capability to do one’s role.”