Indian court allows women to seek top careers in military
NEW DELHI — India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday opened the door for women to pursue military careers at the highest levels, a major milestone in a country where gender inequality is rife and where women have been leaving the workforce in droves.
The court ordered the government to allow women in November, for the first time, to take the entrance exam to India’s premier defense academy, the pipeline for the country’s top army, navy and air force commanders. While the court allowed the government to continue to exclude women from most combat roles, the ruling could encourage more women to pursue careers in the military.
It “gives a sense of victory,” said Anju Bala, a former major in the Indian army. “They have got one more window open to compete equally with men.”
Women make up a tiny fraction of the more than 1.3 million people serving in India’s armed forces, among the world’s largest. They are able to serve as officers, but their upside was limited because they could not attend the elite military academy.
Now, they can enter the military straight out of high school and aspire to the top brass. The ruling could also give them more legal backing as they fight for equal access to combat roles.
Across India, women have been pushing for greater roles in the workplace. Only 9% of working-age women hold jobs, according to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy. India pledged at a Group of 20 meeting of the world’s largest economies in June that it would do more to reduce gender discrimination in recruitment, wages and working conditions.
Since the early 1990s, in response to court cases, women have been eligible for short-service commissions in the armed forces’ education and legal departments. Over the years, women had gained access to eight additional departments, including engineering, intelligence and logistics.
In recent years, women’s access to other areas has broadened, including the Assam Rifles, India’s oldest paramilitary force, in 2016, and the army police in 2019.
But their tenure largely remained capped at 14 years, and opportunities for higher leadership were limited. Only men could enter the armed forces at age 17 by gaining admission to the National Defense Academy, a fouryear program that provides the core of India’s military leadership. Women were allowed to join through what was seen as a less prestigious, 11-month training course after graduating from college.
Women have challenged the limits in courts for decades. Two years ago, the government agreed to give permanent commissions to women but only to those officers who had served fewer than 14 years, citing physical limitations of older women officers.
In response, serving female officers argued to the court that the policy was “highly regressive but completely contrary to the demonstrated record and statistics.”