Advancing women's role in Indian military through progressive reforms

There are important questions for most militaries, including the Indian one as to how best to improve the status of women in their ranks.

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No less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi recognized the importance of this issue and his ongoing commitment to such in his recent Navy Day speech. While the percentage of women have been traditionally low, new advances have been observed along many dimensions in recent years. This year, “Nearly 80 women officers in the Army have been cleared so far for the rank of Colonel (selection grade), making them eligible to command units in their respective arms and services for the first time, The Indian Express has learnt.” Also, women are eligible to attend military academies a fairly recent development. The list goes on with many breakthroughs but with more needed.

In this article, a number of foreign examples will be especially looked at to provide possible insights from which India might further gain or expand its ideas on how to improve the status of women in its forces, where appropriate and for the future.

Such improvements can have a large follow through, encouraging females in general, having a better image of their overall status and potential and promoting visibly, equality between the genders as done in appropriate ways.

Firstly, let us look to Israel. This includes looking at the recent attack by Hamas which appears to have lessons learned on the need for better integration of female inputs into decision making as a positive for improving national security. One view is that warnings of an attack by female Israeli border guards were ignored because of discrimination.