Women trailblazers hail army for opening new frontiers
Several women officers, who are trailblazers in the Indian Army and serving in challenging roles, believe that the army is opening new frontiers for women at a swift pace, and grooming them to hold leadership positions in select streams on a par with their male counterparts.
The army has removed several barriers for women in recent years.
Captain Shiva Chouhan, the first woman officer to be deployed on the Siachen glacier, says, “Women are getting the same exposure as men in the army. There can be no other experience like being posted to Siachen. This opportunity has taught me how to face the fiercest odds with a smile.”
The 25-year-old officer is from the Corps of Engineers, and deployed at the Kumar post at a height of 15,632 feet. Like other soldiers, she will have a three-month stint in the frozen landscape where the temperature can dip to minus 60 degrees.
In the run-up to Women’s Day on March 8, Chouhan says there was some element of fear of the unknown before she took on the challenging assignment, but “it has turned out to be the most memorable journey of my life.” She trained at the Chennai-based Officers Training Academy and was commissioned into the army in May 2021.
“I feel no other career can provide you as much exposure as the army does. At 25, I feel I can deal with the toughest of situations with ease,” she says.
The army has begun assigning women officers to command roles for the first time, outside the medical stream, and around 50 of them are set to head units in operational areas, including forward locations, under the Northern and Eastern Commands that are responsible for guarding India’s borders with China. The opening of command roles to women became possible only after the army began granting them permanent commission in 2020.
The army has come a long way since it began inducting women in the short-service stream three decades ago, and the force has taken a raft of measures in recent years to open more doors for them, says Major Aaina Rana, the first commanding officer of the 75 Road Construction Company (RCC) at Pipalkoti in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district.
“The colour of our uniforms is the same as our male counterparts, we draw the same salary, and do the same work. The transition was smooth for me when I took over as the first commanding officer of 75 RCC in August 2021. There was no gender angle. It’s only a matter of time before the army starts allowing women into combat arms,” says Rana, who is responsible for providing forward connectivity along the India-China border.
In January, army chief General Manoj Pande said the commissioning of women officers in the regiment of artillery was on the cards, while stressing that their empowerment was a focus area in which the army had made good progress. To be sure, tanks and combat positions in infantry are still no-go zones for women.
“Women officers are now being given command roles outside the Army Medical Corps. The day is not far when women will be represented well in the higher echelons of the army,” says Major Shailli Gehlawat, an army doctor serving with the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei. While Gehlawat was posted to Abyei seven months ago, the army in early January deployed its largest contingent of 27 women peacekeepers in Sudan’s disputed region of Abyei, where they are performing security-related tasks in the challenging UN mission.
“Women have in-built strength to take on all challenges. Some realise that only after encountering tough situations,” says the 33-year-old.
The army is offering women officers a raft of opportunities that have given them new hard-earned identities, empowered them and helped bridge the gender gap significantly in a traditionally male-dominated field.
With more doors being opened for them, the contribution of women officers to the army will only increase in the coming years, says Captain Deeksha C Mudadevannanavar, a woman officer serving as a regimental medical officer (RMO) with an elite Special Forces unit.
“I have been with the unit for around four months, and everyone treats me like they would treat any other officer,” says the 28-year-old.
Women in uniform are no longer on the fringes but are being assigned central roles on a par with their male counterparts across the three services – they are flying fighter planes, serving on board warships, being inducted in the personnel below officer cadre, eligible for permanent commission, and undergoing training at the National Defence Academy.
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