The bias that must go

Even when women find space in institutions such as police and judiciary, their progress is hobbled

ACROSS THE WORLD, diversity is a hallmark of effective institutions. The inclusion of women is one crucial element in operationalising this value. Institutions tasked with the delivery of justice are particularly obligated to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, including gender diversity. This Women’s Day, whether or not there is an appetite to include women is evidenced by the numbers. Data tells its sadly honest story.

The latest India Justice Report (IJR) points out that the gender gap remains wide in each of the subsystems that make up the justice delivery system — police, judiciary, prisons, legal aid, and human rights commissions.

A quick, back-of-the-envelope estimation shows there are only about three lakh women in the justice delivery system. Quotas have helped them get in, but even when they are included, inevitably, women’s place remains restricted to the lower echelons: If 35 per cent of subordinate judges are women, the number comes down to 13 per cent in the high courts. In the Supreme Court today, there are only three women judges. According to IJR figures from 2022, from around 12 per cent women at the constabulary level, the number declines to 8 per cent at the officer level. The pathetically few women in prison administration (14 per cent) are almost all stuck in the lowest ranks. No one is rushing to fill the gender gap.

Until now, there has been no woman Chief Justice of India. The first woman judge on the Supreme Court bench was Justice Fathima Beevi in 1989. In the high courts too, in over seven decades there have been only 16 women chief justices. So leading by example is not on the cards.

In all its years of existence, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which ought to be an exemplar of fairness, including gender justice, there has been no woman commissioner. It has only ever had three women members, and never two serving at the same time. What’s true for the NHRC is

A quick, back-of-theenvelope-estimation shows there are only about three lakh women in the justice delivery system. Quotas have helped them get in, but even when they are included, inevitably, women’s place remains restricted to the lower echelons: If thirty-five per cent of subordinate judges are women, the number comes down to 13 per cent in the high courts. In the Supreme Court today, there are only three women judges.

true for state commissions too. Across the country, these institutions remain unconcerned about their lack of gender diversity. The IJR finds that as of 2022, only six commissions had women as members or as secretaries. There were no women chairpersons and only Kerala, Meghalaya and Punjab had a lone woman member each.

Despite the dire need to bring more women into policing to make it more responsive and humane and despite long-agreed targets to bring their representation up to 30 per cent and more, the percentage of women in police hovers around 12 per cent, with most of them huddled at the lower ranks. Every now and then there are news reports of an “exceptional woman” reaching the dizzying heights of the Supreme Court or becoming director general of prisons or commissioner of police. But these individual beacons of success are not so much emblematic of a culture of openmindedness as they are evidence that the exception proves the rule.

The truth is that a man, no matter how mediocre, weak or unworthy, moves up the ladder of position and power because of his gender. But a woman must jump through hoops of perception, opinion and judgement to prove exceptional qualities before she can lay claim to a place in the higher echelons. From Justice Ruma Pal to Kiran Bedi to Meeran Borwankar, those who made it to the top were simply too talented to be held down and only got what was their natural due.

Numbers count and the poor representation of women in the justice system signals embedded institutional bias. Yet, those with their hands on the tiller too often place the onus on women themselves while remaining unquestioning of institutional structures and cultures that inhibit their entry and retention. Citing “difficulties” in “accommodating” more women into their ranks, they ask plaintively: Where are the women? Where will the onground facilities come from? How will demands for flexibility of working conditions be met? Who will protect them in the field — and perhaps even within the walls of these maledominated institutional sub-cultures?

These are deflections from the real questions: How prepared are institutions of justice to provide all genders with the basic requirements of any workplace and how much is being done to provide for women who are, after all, not men? What is it about my institution that does not welcome the social, cultural and biological realities of being a woman?

Research across the world shows that the induction of women — and indeed other diversities — into male-dominated mono-cultural institutions changes the internal dynamic and public response for the better. Undoubtedly, the pace of inclusion has sped up over the last decade. Yet, policy imagination still rarely goes beyond the aspiration to bring in “more women” or “at least one woman” or reserve places that will bring their share up to 30 or 33 per cent. Equal opportunity and parity — no more than 60 per cent of any gender — is a distant dream. To demonstrate they live by the core values of equality and equity, the administrators of justice must overcome the reluctance to prepare institutions for the inclusion of women, lead by example, re-examine existing practices of recruitment and retention and put in place incentives and disincentives that encourage measurable positive outcomes and discourage discrimination. Justice requires that it is not women who must twist and turn to be more like men to be able to “fit into” institutions. Mono-cultural male dominant institutional sub-cultures must acknowledge that they will always be sub-par when they are gender imbalanced.

The writer is chief editor, India Justice Report and executive director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative