Women Soldiers in BSF Are Flaunted as 'Trophies', but Equality Will Take Time

The public tends to relate women soldiers of BSF only with ceremonial functions performed by them, writes SK Sood.

The authorities have a tendency to project women as — shall we say trophies? — to be flaunted. The focus must actually be on ensuring and protecting the women's wellbeing within the organisation and projecting their operational usefulness to the organisation.

(Photo: iStockphoto)

Women have been part of the Indian defence forces for long, be it in the Medical and Nursing corps or the clerical cadres. But it was only in 1992 when the first female commissioned officer was inducted. The glass ceiling has since been broken, with women now being inducted as fighter pilots and as part of special forces. They are also eligible to get permanent commission now, after the intervention of the Supreme Court in the Secretary Ministry of Defence vs Babita Punia case.

While issues like the induction of women as officers through National Defence Academy (NDA) and the recent communication of a General about the challenges that the Army faces with women in command are animatedly discussed, the challenges faced by female soldiers in the Border Security Force (BSF), and inversely, the challenges that the organisation faces in their personnel management, rarely come to public attention.

The public tends to relate women soldiers of BSF only with the ceremonial functions performed by them; the daily retreat ceremony at Attari border, for instance, or other non-operational activities such as motorcycling, cycling, or river safaris among others.

The authorities have a tendency to project women as — shall we say trophies? — to be flaunted. The focus must actually be on ensuring and protecting the women's wellbeing within the organisation and projecting their operational usefulness to the organisation.

An adequate period has elapsed since their induction into the forces for us to review how the women personnel are contributing to the security of borders of India, and how the BSF, an organisation that was exclusively a male domain till their induction, has assimilated women and adjusted to the reality of having them in their cadres.

The March of Women in BSF

The induction of women in BSF was a functional requirement especially after the fencing on international borders. Security requirements necessitated that the going across the fence to help farmers in the fields be screened.

Since this could not be done by male soldiers, help of women from local villages used to be taken. This was not a satisfactory arrangement because of the possibility of connivance. On the Bangladesh border, for instance, the BSF faces the problem of illegal immigration, which includes women. Additionally, while deployed for internal security duties, BSF is required to deal with women. The need for a women's Constabulary was therefore increasingly felt. 

The first batch of women as Constables (CTs) were thus inducted in the field in 2009 after completing their training.

The current strength of women in BSF is about 10,000 and is slated to be scaled up to 15 percent of the force's strength, as noted in a recent study by researchers at IIM Bangalore titled Induction of Women Combatants in BSF. The induction of women as supervisory staff, i.e., as Subordinate and Gazetted Officers, was subsequently initiated in 2010 and 2016 respectively. 

Unlike the women in the defence forces, most women combatants in BSF are recruited as foot soldiers and they have to operate from Border Out Posts (BOPs) in remote areas where even the basic facilities for men are sometimes not available.

Further, unlike exclusive all-woman battalions as in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), women personnel in BSF are assigned to different units in small teams, thus depriving them of avenues to share concerns and difficulties that they may not feel comfortable sharing with male commanders and peers.

The number of female Subordinate officers and Gazetted Officers in BSF being very limited, they are not available in every unit. As a result, the force initially adopted the ad-hoc measure of incorporating female doctors, wives of officers, and other personnel to counsel them and convey their problems to the decision makers to address. With induction of women supervisory staff, a formal mechanism for their grievance redressal is being gradually put in place. 

Fighting Male Dominance

Seeped in a male-oriented culture, BSF as an organisation was faced with the issue of human resource management of women constables. It has slowly been adapting to the changing dynamics of a mixed gender organisation.

The issues involved relate to recruitment, training, transfer and postings, career management, sexual harassment and grievance redressal mechanisms.

Properly addressing these issues has ensured a high standard of morale and motivation for the women in the force, despite extremely difficult service conditions.

In so far as recruitment is concerned, the organisation has reviewed and adjusted the physical parameters for women candidates. Similar adjustments were made in the qualifying standards for physical training after, keeping in view their physiological aspects. Another concern related to handling women trainees, especially in those aspects that sometimes involved physical contact - for example, drill, weapons and physical training and other such activities. The male trainers were specially briefed and supervised closely to ensure safety and dignity of the women.

The need for privacy necessitated creating separate accommodation for women, both at the training centres as well as in the field. Prefabricated barracks were installed hurriedly at the training centres. However, because of the vast dispersal and finances required, the issue of accommodation at Border Out Posts (BOPs) remains an ongoing process.

Keeping in view the long hours of work and privacy needs of women, prefabricated toilets were procured and installed near the patrolling points where women were deployed.

Need for Holistic Changes for Inclusivity

Initially, women soldiers were mostly utilised for low-risk tasks such as day time sentry duties at BOPs, fencing gate management, and so on. Women soldiers were usually deployed in conjunction with male counterparts for various duties as deploying them separately was considered risky. Gradually the ambit of assignments to them has been expanded to those involving higher risk; like night patrolling and ambushes, patrolling across the fence, and so on.

And women soldiers have excelled in all duties assigned to them through proper application of their learnings.

Women soldiers have been recruited because of operational requirement on fenced borders, hence, logically they should not be deployed along the Line of Control (LC) in Kashmir or other militancy affected areas.

This creates a personnel management issue for the authorities because they have been recruited against the overall authorised strength of soldiers in the force. This curtails avenues of male soldiers for postings to non-conflict areas.

With the present strength of women soldiers being less, this problem is manageable. However, gradually, when their strength is scaled up (15 percent, i.e., 40,000 or so women in an organisation of about 260,000 personnel) the force will have to ensure a balance between ensuring welfare of the women soldiers vis-à-vis operational efficiency.

The policy makers will eventually have to ensure gender neutral assignment of duties.

A Challenge and an Opportunity 

One important stressor for women soldiers, especially those who have started a family, is that even two years of childcare leave (in an entire career) and six months of maternity leave can be no substitute for full time childcare. Daycare facilities like crèche and so on have been started for women soldiers at Headquarters. However, these will have to be created at or near the BOPs to keep them motivated in order to retain them in service.

Further, the policy makers will have to plan for reserve women soldiers to cater for their prolonged absence on child care and maternity leave to obviate additional pressure of duties on male soldiers. 

The organisation also has to ensure an adequate number of women as doctors to cater to the needs of women soldiers. At operational levels, commanders are trying to assign them less strenuous duties during menstrual cycle as it becomes difficult for them to perform duties which are physically very demanding.

The BSF also has a well-structured redressal mechanism at each level in accordance with the government guidelines. The quick disposal of all cases of sexual harassment in accordance with the provisions of the BSF Act also acts as a deterrent. The Ministry of Home Affairs closely monitors all such cases. Provision for a toll-free number to report grievances has been made besides through specific module in the Intranet available to all serving personnel.

Having women as soldiers in BSF is both a challenge and opportunity. With their numbers likely to increase per the government policy, it will be in the interest of the forces to prepare a long-term strategy to assimilate them through inclusive personnel management policies. The organisation will do well to draw lessons from the experience of other countries and adopt best practices. A holistic, long-term approach will go a long way in enhancing the operational efficiency of the force.

(Sanjiv Krishan Sood (Retd) has served as the Additional Director General of the BSF and was also with the SPG. He tweets @sood_2. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)