The Delhi high court’s decision directing the Indian armed forces to grant permanent commissions to women is a significant step to further empowerment of women.
There is no need to connect this decision to the current turbulent passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament. The armed forces have remained India’s most gender-insensitive and discriminatory part of the system. The high court has made it clear that this inequality is not acceptable.
Currently, women can get short-term commissions of no longer than 14 years, and are not entitled to pension and other retirement benefits.
The armed forces have come up with various arguments to justify their position but most of them have more to do with denial of equal rights to women than with cogent arguments about why women in the forces are not entitled to the same terms of employment and benefits as men.
As one of the judges of the high court bench, justice SK Kaul, pointed out: “Once a decision is taken on a policy initiative that there are areas where women can be employed… there cannot be discrimination on grounds of gender in terms of opportunities.”
The current judgment came after several retired women officers moved court asking for equal benefits. The verdict has its limitations and applies only to women who were recruited before 2006. The court also turned down an appeal to allow women in combat roles, although it pointed out that some countries do allow this and mentioned that social and culturalissues have to be considered.
It may seem as if the larger battle is yet to be won, but it must also be considered that getting the armed forces to drop their patriarchal past is not easy. Senior officers have resisted any move to give women larger roles in the forces, citing pregnancy and the uneasiness of their male colleagues as the primary reasons. The armed forces’ justifications are sadly just that — attempts to prolong a historic wrong.
The government, it is felt, is unlikely to challenge the court’s decision and changes in the armed forces are now a given. The next step has to be improved access at all levels, so that women are free to choose any profession they would like to follow — just as men are.
To state that women are unable or incapable of fulfilling larger roles in the forces is to take us back decades in the fight against gender discrimination. The Delhi high court has given the government one more chance to uphold the Constitution.
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