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17 June 2015

Arms & women: Just symbolic Nari Shakti?

Prem Chowdhry
Jun 17 2015 
The resistance to women’s recruitment in the fighting units is a desire to preserve the Army as a male domain. Combat by nature is considered a male occupation, the Army is considered a male space and combat the most masculine aspects of war.

Women soldiers march in the Army Day parade in New Delhi. Apprehensions about inclusion of women in combat roles abound. PTI

A seminal utterance of Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has gone unnoticed by both, the electronic and print media. On May 30, he categorically ruled out any “combat role” for women in the armed forces and stated: “The issue of not allowing women combatants has more to do with the consequences they can face in case they are taken prisoners by the enemy in a war.” It was the passing out parade of the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, and he was echoing what the Indian Army has held for long. Apart from being reminiscent of the frequent advisory utterances of many politicians who “warn” women about going out of the house after dark as it may have “unspeakable consequences”, this explanation is totally inadequate. 

This stand, taken at the highest official quarters, has effectively rubbished the much-touted governmental commitment to empowerment of women. What are the apprehensions, the possible social and cultural impact of inclusion of women in combat roles? These fears emanate from the perceived threat posed to the existing structures of gender, on which lies the equilibrium of the patriarchal society. Ideologically, the entry of women into the Army is considered a threat to both femininity and masculinity and a grave challenge to well-established familiar values. 

Since the early 1990s, women have served in non-combat fields like medicine, engineering, ordnance, signals, intelligence, education, law, air traffic control, among others. They are not in the infantry, armed corps, mechanised infantry or artillery and cannot fly fighter planes or serve on warships. They have no options to choose combat roles. In the available Short Service Commission, women have been employed for a period ranging from five to 14 years alone and rise only to the rank of Lt. Colonel. After persistent demands of women cadets, the government decided (in September 2008) to grant Permanent Commission to women. They could now rise to the highest rank of Lt. General. As a matter of policy, women have not been assigned operational roles. There was a faint hope that once women join the Army on Permanent Commission, eventually sometime this year in 2015, they may be able to undertake combat roles, because of the logic of “combat employability and Permanent Commission being interlinked”. The minister’s remark has put a full stop to such an accommodation. 

According to figures made available to the Parliament in 2011, women officers in the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force constitute only 3.3, 3.9 and 10.4 per cent of the officer cadre. This, when there is an acknowledged shortfall of 13,000 officers across the three services and women officers are keen to be recruited in the combat line. Personnel below the officer rank comprise only men. Ironically, despite this severe handicap, the three services — Army, Navy and Air Force — were represented by all-women marching contingents at this year's Republic Day function, (with Barack Obama looking on), to convey Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promotion of Nari Shakti. Armymen openly insist that fighting is a “man's job” and should remain so. 

Accommodation of women challenges familiar gender roles in society and their intrusion into the Army seems to jeopardise the “privilege of men”. In a patriarchal society with a culturally assigned subordinate position, and in a relationship dominated by men, if women were to perform, what men perceive as a “masculine function”, it will not be be accepted easily. When they attempt to enter the Army, especially as officers, they threaten to undermine the hegemonic masculinity of the organisation and stand to feminise it and even, as one officer put it, “to make effeminate” the sturdy men. Women “in charge of men” are seen as transgressive and “unnatural” — women out of place who are denying themselves (read femininity). As an Army officer from North India pontificated: “Admiyon jaisi auratein kis ko chaihiye hain?” (who wants manly women?). These notions of masculinity/femininity are totally at odds with the rules of modern-day equality. 

The combat role occupies a defining role in a highly masculinised institution and enjoys the highest symbolic status. It is the combatants who are remembered in war memorials, celebrated in folk lore, in tales of valour and bravery. These men stand separate from other support services. Clearly, when the role of women in the Army is constructed around the combat/non-combat dichotomy, it is on the basis of the ideological construction of womanhood and mankind in society, although the reasons popularly offered are the “objective difficulties” of incorporating women into combat roles. 

By constructing a non-combat role of women in the armed forces, the dominant opinion is able to draw upon women's necessary labour, while at the same time contain them within a space designated as female, or at least “part-female.” Culturally, the Army has an all-male culture and is well known for its male bonding, geared towards building a sense of group culture that encourages unquestioning obedience and aggression, believed to be essential for combat effectiveness. “Comradeship and brotherhood,” an important ingredient of the “Code of Honour,” is one of the major defining characteristics of the Indian soldier. Introduction of women disturbs this all-male homosocial grouping. Unofficial Army culture, I was confidentially informed, encourages sexist and homophobic attitudes. The use of “coarse language” and “swear words” is common. It actively excludes women, denigrates them, treats them as sexual objects, abuses and ridicules them. Armymen show an almost universal obsession with sexual banter. The justification offered is the fact that an overwhelming majority of men are isolated and thus deprived of social and emotional outlets.

Many officers remember that when they entered the Army for the first time they were astonished by the concentration upon the subject of women as a topic of conversation. Sexual words are a common part of speech. Women officers revealed that they had to listen to endless references to sex in both formal and informal situations and felt (sexually) harassed on account of it. The rising cases of sexual harassment in the Army are a case in point. Women officers opine that facing sexual harassment and molestation in the Army are common occurrences. 

Not all women complain officially but cases of those who do are forwarded to the Court of Inquiry, with indifferent results. The perpetrators usually remain unpunished. In 2009, in a sexual harassment case, the Supreme Court censured the Army for not following its landmark judgment mandating setting up of committees at workplaces to look into women employees’ sexual harassment complaints. 

Women are often questioned as to why they should work in such places where they feel unequal and uncomfortable? In view of the globalised modern India that the Prime Minister wishes to project to the world at large, the symbolic accommodation of women in combat roles envisioned on the Republic Day must be turned into a reality.

The writer is Senior Academic Fellow at the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi

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