New Delhi: A top Army officer has called for a “comprehensive policy on…gender neutralityAlso a “practical performance analysis” of colonel-rank women commanding officers (COs) in the force cited several instances of them not meeting expected standards due to lack of training for command, among other factors.
Lieutenant General Rajeev Puri, who completed his tenure as commander of the China-specific 17 ‘Brahmastra’ Mountain Strike Corps in Panagarh on November 20, in a letter to Eastern highlighted the need to ensure gender neutrality in the posting and selection of COs. Emphasized on. Command chief Lieutenant-General RC Tiwari had sent copies to the Adjutant General and Military Secretary at the Army Headquarters last month.
Since last year, women officers have started commanding air defence, signals, ordnance, engineers, intelligence, service corps and similar units.
Concern raised over ‘lack of empathy’ in female CO
Women officers are still not allowed in the main ‘combat arms’ of the infantry, armored corps and mechanized infantry of the over 11 lakh strong army. Lt Gen Puri said that with eight such women COs in his corps, an analysis was conducted after an “in-house review” based on the “demonstrated performance” of the officers. Female COs are exhibiting poor “interpersonal relations”, including a tendency to “make exaggerated complaints” to senior commanders about their subordinates rather than exercising their authority and powers first, as well as officers and soldiers in their units. For there is a “lack of empathy”. , He said, “Any professional disagreement or minor debate is viewed as insubordination… A lack of empathy may require overcompensation.”
It has also been found that women COs tend to over-centralize decision making without proper consultation, in a “my way or the highway” type of approach, rather than a “directive style of command”.
Some people also have a “false sense of entitlement”, said Lt Gen Puri, citing the case of a woman CO who had requested the unit’s Subedar Major (SM) to open the door of her vehicle whenever she arrived. Open, which is contrary to the commands on this topic. “Sometimes, when the SM was late in doing so, the CO would sit in her vehicle and not get down,” he said.
Some female COs display “over-ambition”, leading to repeated incidents of “unreasonable performance demands” on officers and soldiers, and as a result, high levels of stress in their units. “The uncontrolled desire to make derogatory statements about juniors to grab credit instead of encouraging them is routine,” Lt Gen Puri said. At the other end of the spectrum, some female COs have taken a “lower profile, less initiative path” to taking command, she said.
With the Supreme Court imposing permanent commission and command roles for women in the armed forces, which had long opposed it due to “operational, practical and cultural problems”, the Army finally opened up command assignments through a special selection. 108 women officers were listed for. The board followed “several policy relaxations” early last year, as reported by TOI then. However, these women colonels, unlike their male counterparts who undergo ‘Junior Command’, Staff College and other supporting courses as well as the requisite appointments as young officers, were not trained and prepared for the challenging role of CO. Was.
Apart from lack of command training, she said, “The postings of these officers did not expose them to command roles. Hardly any woman officer hired high pressure command/staff assignments before her role as CO yes.” With women officers not having much experience in operational tasks, she said, “preferential treatment” has led to “a lack of understanding of the difficulties and consequently a lack of compassion for the soldiers involved in these operations”.
“The desire to prove oneself in a field that was considered a man’s bastion is probably the reason behind over-ambition in some female COs… to be recognized as strong and to be judged as soft-hearted To avoid this, female COs handle HR issues more forcefully than their male counterparts.”