What’s in the Army for You, Lady?. Review on Indian Army

Does the Defence Services need women in COMBAT ROLES?

Before the feminists turn their ire on me for such a blasphemous question, consider this typical situation, common in any Army unit posted in the field.

Hardly educated, physically fit, virilebut stressed men, living far from their families with not much personal comforts, under tents or in make-shift cabins, using nature’s geographical curves and silhouettes to cater to nature’s calls.

Enter the lady (Officer, mind you, for nobody dares suggest, like “in the US”, about a plain-jane-soldier role for her in Our land!), fresh from the Academy, all full of ideas, aspirations and patriotic fervour. Never has she beentold about this face of the Indian Army. Does a member of the fairer sex aspire, deserve or need to be in such a scenario, which can do no good for her or the men around? Critics can argue till the cows come home, that “the US Army has them, the Israelis have them” and so on. A look at the culture, upbringing, attitude to women and living conditions in those regions will, by itself, speak of the clichéd approach of such a baseless comparison.

Cut to the Navy, the same situation stands true, except that dinghy bathrooms with hardly any partitions rule the roost onboard the warship. Sleeping areas are also scarce, with ‘sharing’ the password to comfort. Again, imagine your sister or daughter or wife in such an environment, 100 miles out at sea….can you?

Now, for all that equality of sexes embodies,it is certainly debatable if the Indian woman is physically, mentally or emotionally cast to exist in such a pot-pourri of homo-sapiens. If not, and if it is a given that they need facilities commensurate with their gender and its specific requirements, the very line of reason behind gender-equality sans exceptions in all job profiles stands suspect. The Armed Forces, especially in combat role, cannotafford to have comfort and care dictating operational criteria. Can you even imagine the furore it would create nationally, or even internationally, if a lady officer were to be captured by the enemy and meted out treatment at par with their male counterpart (For those of you who thought and believed Geneva Convention is Gospel, I’d say “Good Morning”!).

It is one thing to claim and prove that the Indian fairer sex stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the man and totally another to try and emulate the phenomenon in areas of non-competence. The raging controversy (turned clumsily and oh-so-funnily political!) around the suicide of a Lady Army Officer and its precedent of the ‘Gupta’ case in the Air Force need only a neutral and careful eye to educate oneself about the fallacy of the relevance of claims to induct Indian women into the fold of their operational Arms.

In this country where the woman is revered,as mother, sister, wife and able colleague, let us not distort the picture by placing a square peg in a round hole and claim, for political correctness, that it fits, and, well!

So MS-ians, do we need women in combat roles in our Armed Forces?

The question remains!