The Unwarranted Craze To Induct Women In Armed Forces

Drastic changes need to be done before opening the gates of the coupe.

- Col Y Udaya Chandar

We have had women officers right from the beginning in AMC (Army Medical Corps) and MNS (Military Nursing Service), based on the necessity to handle mainly the women patients. They were posted in the forward areas in wartime, including World War II, to make up the shortfall in physicians. They had served commendably and earned great laurels.

Our politicians and commanders have expressed a lot for enlisting women officers in our armed forces without conviction. So women entered Indian Air Force (IAF) as officers in good numbers; they are serving mainly as pilots, including in fighter squadrons.

In the last two decades, women have been enrolled as officers in the Services of Army Service Corps (ASC), Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME), and Ordnance Corps (AOC) in small numbers. They have been functioning satisfactorily.

The armed forces commanders, who know fully well the service conditions of combat arms like Infantry, Armoured Corps, and Artillery, have been articulating to enlist lady officers in these combat arms. Some commanders and many politicians have gone further ahead, demanding that women be employed in ranks as soldiers.

But can they be as good soldiers as the men? Even the late CDS General Bipin Rawat was in a hurry for inducting women in ranks in combat arms.

We hear every day a lot about the unemployment rate in the country. There are no correct data on men's unemployment rate and that of women for many genuine reasons. Even if someone has published it, that would be far off the mark.

For the time being, we can take the unemployment rate published mainly by the government as that it would be primarily of men, which is phenomenal. The men also want to join the armed forces in ranks readily in very substantial numbers, then why take women in the armed forces?