Anger at Indian general's gender slur

Maseeh Rahman in New Delhi
Monday June 19, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Indian soldiers rehearse for their Republic Day parade in New Delhi. Photograph: Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters

The Indian army has been severely criticised after its vice-chief said the world's third-largest fighting force, which began inducting women officers only in the early 1990s, "can do without them".

"Ideally, we would like to have gentleman and not lady officers at the unit level," Lt-Gen S Pattabhiraman told the Hindustan Times last weekend, a day after a 25-year-old female lieutenant committed suicide in the garrison town of Udhampur in troubled Jammu and Kashmir state. She was known to be unhappy about the menial tasks she had been given in a supply depot.

"Feedback from lower formations suggests that comfort levels with lady officers are low," the general added. "We can do without them."

There are just 918 women officers serving in non-combat roles in the 1.1 million-strong Indian army.

Gen Pattabhiraman came under fire for what was seen as a "sexist slur", and there were calls for the army to start a gender sensitisation programme for its top officers.

"It is a reflection of the working of the army and its mindset," said Sushma Swaraj, the most prominent female leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata party. "If I was the defence minister I would have called the vice-chief and told him we can do without you, you can go."

Responding to the crescendo of protest, the army has launched a damage control exercise. At a hurriedly called news conference on Saturday, spokesperson Maj-Gen Raj Suljana declared: "We are very proud of our lady officers, whose contribution is greatly valued. We would, in fact, like to further optimise their role in the army."

Gen Suljana maintained that the vice-chief had been quoted "out of context". He said that what Gen Pattabhiraman meant to say was that "the army's preference was for gentleman officers over lady officers in combat units".

The explanation has appeared to anger critics further, since the Indian army inducts women only into non-combat units such as ordnance, engineering or supply.

Discrimination against women is in-built in the structure of the army, since they are recruited only on short-service commissions of five to 10 years and cannot rise above the rank of major. Gen Suljana has announced that the period of service is being extended to 14 years.

The only exception is the medical corps, which has recruited women since the days of British rule and today has a woman serving as a lieutenant general.

Critics say discrimination starts at training school. Women cadets have to complete the same course in half the time as their male equivalents - just 24 weeks. The physical standards for women are pegged unnaturally low; men and women are segregated during training, and unlike in the navy and air force, they even have to march separately from the men at the passing-out parade.

Referring to the challenges women face during training, a retired woman officer, Capt Deepanjali Bakshi, described the attitude of the male cadets as "mostly patronising and derisive".

"Part of the resentment against women can be attributed to the attitude of senior officers who have preconceived and archaic notions about the capabilities of women and their role in the military," she wrote in a recent issue of the United Service Institution of India Journal.

Source: The Guardian