Arms and the woman

The impact of a fleeting cameo moment on Republic Day 2010 momentarily highlighted to a nationwide audience the ceaseless human cost paid by the Indian Army for building and preserving the republic. Posthumous gallantry awards carry a special impact of their own, especially when the next of kin receiving the award is herself a soldier like Maj. Rishma Sarin as she stepped forward and rigidly saluted President Pratibha Patil, her supreme commander, when receiving the Ashok Chakra awarded to her late husband, Maj. Mohit Sharma of the Special Forces. Her stoic demeanour in the midst of deepest personal tragedy sharply highlighted women officers in the armed forces as perhaps nothing else could have.
Women officers are not a recent or novel phenomenon in the Indian armed forces, where women have been inducted for decades as doctors in the Medical Corps, not to mention the nursing services which are a separate branch, in all of which women have rendered yeoman service. The Indian armed forces commenced induction of women officers in 1992 in branches other than the Medical Corps, and at present they constitute a small, almost miniscule, portion of the officer corps, being approximately 2.5, three and seven per cent of the cadres in the Army, Air Force and Navy respectively. Induction of women into what has traditionally been an intensely masculine environment has been a transformational moment for the services, evoking mixed reactions from the very outset, and touching off soul-searching within a conservative hierarchical structure. The issue generates much public debate in a carnivorous visual media, which pits conservative colonels against fire-breathing feminists in talk shows where the female of the species have generally proved deadlier than the male.
Women are enrolled only into the officer cadre, and commissioned into the administrative services and some parts of combat support arms at present, and can serve for a maximum period of 14 years as short service officers. Permanent regular commissions, a necessary precondition to enter the military mainstream, are not open to women officers as yet, an aspect which can be immensely frustrating to those among them who are desirous of a full-time career.
The one single aspect about women in uniform that remains perennially under debate pertains to their place in combat, an issue on which opinions are deeply divided the world over. Surveys abroad indicate that while induction of women into the armed forces both as officers as well as into the ranks is the norm rather than the exception in most countries, their assignment to combat arms (such as armour, artillery and infantry) is the exception rather than the norm, even among the so-called emancipated Western societies, including Israel. The reasons basically advanced for this selectivity cite the risks involved on the battlefield, which is not really convincing because given the range and reach of air and missile warfare, death or injury during hostilities can occur to anyone anywhere, whether soldiers in the combat zone or civilians outside it.
However, physical capability and endurance of women can be an issue, especially for the combat arms of the Army where operational and living conditions are relatively harder and physically more demanding. But a much more cogent reason to keep women personnel outside the zone of direct combat lies in the possibility of being taken prisoner and the risk of mistreatment in captivity.
In the Indian Army, women officers can become significant force-multipliers if utilised imaginatively, even in the contemporary environment of internal security, counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism, where “hearts and minds” of local populations constitute the ultimate strategic objective. The armed forces, most of all the Army, have to live and operate amongst the people, and operations have to be people-friendly, demanding a “kinder, gentler” face from the armed forces, primarily the Army, especially when large numbers of women and children are affected. The presence of women officers on internal security and civic action missions will display a “softer” picture of the Army, and undoubtedly facilitate positive interaction.
But that notwithstanding, it must also be understood that in modern warfare, the nature and dimensions of combat itself has changed. It is no longer restricted to the physical battlefield, whether on land, sea or air, because technology has extended conflict into the electronic and cyber spaces as also into the knowledge arena of intelligence, psychology and information technology. These are emerging battlefields where women can truly be warriors in their own right, and where the current classifications and distinctions between combat and combat support arms and administrative services are set to become irrelevant. However, guerrilla organisations have no such inhibitions. Armed women cadres of the LTTE in Sri Lanka or Maobadis in Nepal and India have routinely participated in active combat, suffering heavy casualties on occasion, something structured regular armies do not practice or permit. Even the Rani of Jhansi Regiment of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army was never committed in a ground combat role.
Under the changing circumstances, the armed forces must retrospect and review the service conditions and career patterns of women officers and revisit the present decision on permanent regular commissions for women officers. Women officers should have opportunities for career progression to the highest levels of the hierarchy, but restricted to within the specific branch or departmental cadre.
But in the end one really need not worry — there are rational answers for all questions that may be thrown up in this regard. A woman officer has to be an officer and a lady, just as her male colleague cannot be anything else other than an officer and a gentleman. These appellations, quaint in today’s world, come with a code of ethics and value systems, any departures from which are not to be tolerated in respect of either species. The Services have always been common opportunity employers and are now unisex as well. Internal changes in established attitudes and lifestyles are inevitable, while women military officers on their part must also understand that common opportunities come with common duties and responsibilities, including peace and field tenures in inhospitable areas, as also rigid adherence to strict military value systems.

* Gen. Shankar
Roychowdhury is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former member of Parliament