Landmark Victory for Equal Rights in the Indian Military



Despite the Indian government saying that women soldiers are unfit for military combat, on the 17th of February the Indian Supreme Court have ruled that women will be getting equal rights within the army.

This ruling allows women to be act as colonel, brigadier, major general, lieutenant general, and chief of army staff. They will also reap the same benefits and pensions that their male counterparts.

Just 2 weeks before this ruling the Indian government had given little hope to the possibility of equal treatment after lawyers told the top court that male soldiers are not "yet mentally schooled to accept women officers in command" and that there were "challenges of confinement, motherhood and childcare".

Currently, women are employed under the Short Service Commission (SSC) and don’t qualify for a permanent commission, which grants an officer to serve a full tenure. This means that women will serve for five years and have the option of extending their tenure which limits the amounts of benefits they can get.

The Supreme Court has given 3 months for this new law to be implemented after strongly defending equal rights for women in the army, labelling the governments initial comments as “blatant gender bias”.

“[The] time has come that women officers are not adjunct to their male counterparts. Physiological features of women have no link to their rights. The mindset must change,” Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Ajay Rastogi said in their ruling. “To cast aspersion on gender is an affront to their dignity and to the country.”

The Indian Army is deep-rooted in sexism. Although women have been in the Indian Army on a medical basis since 1888, it was only until 1992 when women were allowed to take on roles in the army. One of the first being Priya Jhingan who was one of 25 lady officers commissioned to the Indian Army in 1993.


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