Top general flags 'problems' with women officers serving in key command roles, shoots off letter

NEW DELHI: At a time when the armed forces have taken great strides towards correcting gender bias, a top general has shot off a letter to the eastern army commander complaining about a litany of issues ostensibly plaguing army units commanded by women officers in the sensitive eastern sector — from officer management to a purportedly misplaced sense of entitlement, from a lack of empathy to an exaggerated tendency to complain, and from over-ambition to a lack of ambition.

- Rahul Singh

The unprecedented five-page letter on "command by women officers" — written by corps commander Lieutenant General Rajeev Puri to Eastern Army Commander Lieutenant General Ram Chander Tiwari — cites an "in-house review" by the force's Panagarh-based 17 mountain strike corps. It calls the findings a "pragmatic performance analysis" of eight women commanding officers (COs) under the Brahmastra Corps.

HT has seen a copy of the letter, which a woman officer described as "bitterly disappointing and smacking of blatant sexism".

The army broke the glass ceiling following a Supreme Court order in 2023 by assigning women officers to command roles outside the medical stream for the first time. Scores of women are now heading units in operational areas, including forward locations, in the operationally critical Northern and Eastern Commands that are responsible for guarding India's borders with China.