1. SEVEN SISTERS POST
18
Guwahati, Thursday, March 8, 2012
EVE’S WORLD
Women combat exclusion instead...
The tri-services are yet to welcome the fair sex with open
arms, preventing them from shattering the brass ceiling
I PURBA KALITA
India is yet to mature
into a society that
accepts women playing
a side-by-side role
without much ado about
physical
embarrassments
I
NDIAN Air Force women pilots
are flying high, touching down
cargo aircraft at some of the
world’s most treacherous landing grounds. The fair sex in the army
too is upbeat, winning entry as permanent commission (PC) officers.
As the chest swells with pride, you
are tempted to jump the gun and ask,
“What next? Combat?” But that will
be the least of your concerns when
you encounter the inside stories.
Combat arms are still many years
away for women. Never mind their
determination and ability to serve
the nation in equal measure like that
of men, they are bound to hit the
brass ceiling. “The army lives by tradition and culture. We cannot push
women towards direct confrontation. We have seen how prisoners of
wars are treated. Would we want our
women to be desecrated?” says former northern army commander Lt
Gen BS Jaswal.
Efforts of integrating the fair sex in
the armed forces sometimes appear
like a flash in the pan. Those who’ve
worked with women officers do not
shy away from rating them on a par
with men. A major drawback — besides physiological conditions that
women cannot wish away — is in our
androcentric social milieu from
where the tri-services draw their soldiers. The men are mostly from villages and are said to be uncomfortable in the presence of women officers. “Jobs once considered chival-
I UDDIPANA GOSWAMI
W
HENEVER we speak
of women in conflict
situations in Assam,
we usually look at them as victims of violence rather than
as perpetrators. Yet, there are
a section of them who had left
the ‘mainstream’ to join some
insurgent group or the other.
Why do we not hear of their
exploits more often? What do
they do in the underground
jungle camps? As it stands,
not many insurgent groups
allow membership to women.
In the ones that do, many of
them are imparted armed
training side by side with their
male counterparts. However,
as conversations with a cross
section of male as well as female rebels have revealed,
they never engage in direct
combat and always form the
second line of offence or defence. For the most part, they
are used for ferrying arms and
ammunition from one place
to another.
“All our couriers were almost exclusively women. We
were also responsible for im-
rous are now done by women.
There’s a lot of disillusionment
among the men. There’s resistance.
Airmen didn’t even want to salute
me at times; they would behave as if
they hadn’t seen me,” says a former
flight lieutenant, Pooja Sahrawat,
who was on a board to suggest if other ranks could be opened to women.
“Naturally, I said no. The situation
isn’t conducive now,” she adds.
India is yet to mature into a society that accepts women playing a
side-by-side role without much ado
about physical embarrassments.
“The services are based on a buddy
system. Will a woman be able to lift
a wounded soldier and walk for miles
at times,” asks Gen Jaswal. He recalls
how they had to take extra care with
the tent of a woman dentist during
Op Vijay to keep away peeping toms.
Urging this writer to search her soul
for answers on equal opportunities
for the sexes in the forces, he shoots
a few questions himself: “In field areas, a woman may have to share a
sleeping bag with another officer,
will she go ahead? Is she fine with
giving up her privacy and changing
in the open? There are operational
actions requiring a man to grasp a
co-soldier, will it be acceptable to
her?” His queries are a grim reminder of the many sexual harassment cases hounding the services
with less than 3,000 women — besides PC officers in Army Medical
Corps, Dental Corps and Military
Nursing Services — among 1.32 million active personnel.
Mostly inducted for jobs ashore,
the navy does not expect women to
rough it out at sea — away from the
homeland for months on small congested ships, staying cheek by jowl
with officers and sailors. Where con-
tinuous tossing causes sickness and
vomiting of blood, with frontline jobs
taking one closer to enemy lines. “If
there is flooding, fire and missile
strikes, women may find themselves
estranged and lonely,” says Vice-Admiral (retd) Dalip Kumar Dewan.
Hoping a change of mindset at various levels will herald a new future
for girls who are daring to go for the
big roles, Vice-Admiral Dewan suggests, “The system will have to evolve.
It takes about 10-12 years for a warship to be made with a cost of ` 2,0008,000 crore. The greyhounds will have
to be structured keeping women in
mind.” Travelling extensively and
seeing world navies from close quarters, the former naval officer makes
an observation, “I have met three or
four women captains abroad and also
a few second-in-command officers,
but they were either not married or
without children.”
Former vice-chief of the air staff,
Air Marshal (retd) PK Barbora, whose
comment on financial constraints in
training women fighter pilots had
raised hackles, clarified he never
doubted their aviation capabilities
but there were issues that couldn’t
be overlooked. “I am very proud that
a woman pilot has landed at Daulat
Beg Oldi, the world’s highest landing ground … But can you tell me if
any woman has ejected from a fighter plane anywhere in the world.
When the aircraft throws you out,
your body weight become 20 times
more and it may lead to compression fracture,” warns the former air
marshal, who had spearheaded the
reactivation of the 2.1km airstrip after 43 years in 2008.
The conditions faced by our armed
forces are definitely different from
other countries. With hostile neighbouring nations, bloody pasts and
counterinsurgencies, officers call the
situation here “warlike”. “We are
equally aware of women’s capabilities but just as different colleges have
different cutoffs, we too have ours,”
says Air Marshal Barbora, recalling
a passing-out-parade at a technical
college in Bangalore, where the sword
of honour was taken by a woman.
For all the mollycoddling that
comes the way of women officers,
former US Army Brigadier General
Rhonda Cornum, captured by Iraqi
forces when she was serving as a flight
surgeon during the Gulf War, wittily recalls in a report what happened
after their Blackhawk was attacked
and soldiers onboard ran to cover
her from top even as bullets hit from
below: “I got shot and none of them
did, but their hearts were in the right
place.” Shielding, after all, can prove
counterproductive.
In an email interview, BARKHA DUTT shares her experiences
with MYITHILI HAZARIKA
‘Few correspondents take
up conflict-reporting here’
For someone who shot to instant fame
for her coverage of the Kargil War,
Barkha Dutt knows what’s she saying
u What is the current scenario of
t I DON’T think we are at a point where
women reporting conflicts in India?
we can draw a generalised conclusion
about women reporting conflict. There
are a few women who do so, but they are
really only a handful. Equally, we don’t
see too many men either committed to
covering a conflict over a prolonged period of time. But yes, women would face
resistance and difficulties on many more
counts than men in reporting war
or conflict.
uConflict reporting involves not only
traversing difficult terrain but also
dealing with prejudice and violence.
How have your experiences been?
t VIOLENCE comes from bombs,
grenades or angry and hostile crowds (in
Egypt, while reporting on the protests, we
were targeted by crowds loyal to Hosni
Mubarak who smashed our cameras,
snatched tapes and held a knife to our
driver). Prejudice is more complicated.
Sometimes assumptions are made about
your gender — that you are an easier
target, outsider, a foreigner — or you are
seen as being hostile to a prevailing
popular ideology.
u What are effective ways of
communicating with locals and
extracting stories?
t IT IS always best to tap into a local.
While reporting on the uprisings in Egypt
and Libya, my team and I didn’t speak
Arabic. We had no way even to
communicate with the man who was
protecting us. Whenever possible, try and
connect through someone you know. If
resources permit, take a translator or
befriend a contact there.
u Have you encountered any hostage or
t SEVERAL times. A violent mob in Cairo,
hostile situation?
threats while crossing the border into
Libya, volatile mobs in India. Also,
dangers from Pakistani shells and guns
during the Kargil war. If you decide to
become a war correspondent, you have to
be willing to leave some things to chance
while taking intelligent, calculated risks
for others. Sometimes you will look back
and wander whether it was worth it. I
drove across the Egyptian border at night
with a producer and cameraman on a
passport that didn’t have a visa for Libya
since we were trying to reach the side of
rebels. We hitched a ride with strangers on
a pickup truck. Then a ride with a man
who carried a knife, ammunition and
didn’t speak our language. It was risky but
we didn’t know any other way. Everyone
has to make an individual call on the level
of risk. If you are a woman there is the
added threat of sexual violence and abuse.
Rebel story: Victim & victimiser
What then is so different about these
women who took up guns to
fight against the state? Nothing
really, except for the fact that they
wore military uniforms
Hseng Noung, former Shan rebel who married author Bertil Lintner.
parting political training to
our cadres — we would teach
them about our history, ideology and so on,” says Kaberi
Kachari Rajkonwar of the
ULFA, who has now joined
the peace process.
Many women rebels who
have internalised their conventional roles do not think
twice about taking up sole responsibility of household
chores like washing clothes,
looking after the children,
cooking and cleaning wherever they had married rebels
staying together in the underground camps.
What then is so different
about these women who took
up guns to fight against the
state? Nothing really, except
for the fact that they wore
military uniforms. Their
wartime role — and these are
the intractable wars we are
talking about — are really not
much different from the
peacetime roles they are usually delegated by the patriarchal society. Teaching is a
‘safe’ occupation for women,
so all women should be professors or schoolteachers.
Women are the homemakers, so they cook and clean
and rear the children. If any
woman does make it to the
top, like Pranati Deka of the
ULFA, it is only as a cultural
secretary, reflecting the bias
of patriarchal society where
women are seen as the keepers of culture and tradition.
“Except for the PLA of Manipur, very few insurgent
groups of the Northeast have
had women rise to any significant ranks within the
armed organisation,” points
out Bertil Linter, the Swedish
journalist who married a
Shan rebel, got her to shoot
with the camera instead of
with the gun, and whose
book ‘Land of Jade’ chronicles the journey of the husband, wife and their sixmonth old daughter through
the rebel territories of the
Northeast and Kachin and
Burma. In stark contrast,
Lintner recalls stories about
the women outlaws of southeast Asia — some of whom
he has met, some who have
become the stuff of legends.
Their Northeast Indian
cousins, he feels, have not
been able to transcend the
traditional roles imposed
upon them by the patriarchal
norms of society.
Then when these outlawed
groups join the ‘mainstream’, and are given political rewards for their return, the women rebels re-
Breaking ground with new careers
I REEMA GOWALLA
W
If you decide to become a
war correspondent, you have
to be willing to leave some
things to chance while taking
intelligent, calculated risks
for others
E know they excel in the
art of homemaking; they
care for us and make
those little efforts just to ensure
that everyone in the family is happy. Yes, it is women we are talking
about. History has given us some
inspiring examples of their intelligence and valour, and how they
have even surpassed men on many
fronts. But the kind of careers modern women are opting for and the
proficiency with which they juggle
between work and family deserve
special appreciation.
Kandarpa Kumar Deka, vicechancellor, Dibrugarh University, says, “Career preferences are
changing for good. Girls are
increasingly picking up non-conventional subjects like management, computer science, technology, physical education,
pharmaceuticals and even
performing arts.”
Petroleum-related courses, including oil-well drilling technolo-
gy and petroleum geology are also
gaining popularity. Earlier, the proportion of girls and boys in the university used to be 50-50 but now
it has become 30-70, with girls occupying the majority of seats.
“It is quite encouraging to see
the increasing number of girls in
all the three major streams – arts,
commerce and science. In certain courses, girls easily outnumber boys by claiming a whopping 90%,” Deka adds.
But Walter Fernandes, director
at North Eastern Social Research
Centre, feels, “Although the proportion of male and female students receiving education is more
or less the same, in terms of job
opportunities male candidates
are still given preference in most
northeastern states.”
The social structure has a strong
influence over the job distribution
system. And due to a lack of access
to suitable employment avenues,
many women from the region migrate to other parts of the country
to build their careers, he rues.
Petroleum-related
courses, including
oil-well drilling
technology and
petroleum geology
are also gaining
popularity
Meanwhile, those who cannot
venture out limit themselves to
teaching and administrative jobs.
Madhu Chanda Adhikari, corporate communication head at
Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL),
says, “When the organisation
started, there was only a handful
of female employees, but over the
years their count has steadily increased. NRL has hired many
women engineers, of late.”
Female workers are more goaloriented, orderly and methodical
in their work compared with their
male counterparts, according to
Adhikari. “They are often praised
for their decisiveness, efficiency
and clarity of thought. But I feel
that women in the region still have
a long way to go when it comes
to establishing their independent
careers,” she remarks.
While urban women are leaving
no stone unturned to achieve their
targets, those in rural areas are
also exploring opportunities to
showcase their talent through various platforms. Bodies like North
Eastern Development Finance
Corporation (NEDFi) and Micro,
Small & Medium Enterprise Development Institutes (MSME-DI)
are helping underprivileged
women to choose a vocation and
earn their living.
Pakumoni Das, assistant manager of MF & MSE at NEDFi, says,
Rajeev Bhattacharyya
SOFT POWER? Women rebels march in step at an ULFA camp.
main confined to the same
occupations and engagements — this time, in society at large: mothers, sisters,
wives, caregivers, teachers,
homemakers. They do not
usually get a share of the political power and are hardly
ever heard of in the public
sphere. The only exceptions
are writers like Kaberi
Kachari Rajkonwar who remain in the public eye
“The womenfolk in rural areas
of the region, particularly those
in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram
and Nagaland, are very enterprising. They are hardworking
and creative.”
Handloom and handicraft industries not only open up new
employment avenues for women
but also boost the local economy.
In a bid to help women start their
own business, the organisation
runs special programmes — like
the Women Enterprise Development Scheme — and provides
loans depending on the requirements of the venture. Entrepreneurs can also market their products through the NEDFi Haat.
“We work for the overall development of their enterprises. This
gives them a sense of self-empowerment and also generates
money,” Das adds.
Satyakam Dutta, of sakori.org,
comments, “As both young men
and women strive to climb the job
ladder after graduating from universities, their choice of vocation
is also influenced by pay packages offered by employers. Fresh
graduates expect a salary of up to
`15,000, depending on the nature
of the job.”
through her writings, or Pranati Deka who is involved in
the peace process. The many
nameless, faceless cadres
who joined the insurgent
groups because they wanted to fight against the marginalised positions of their
nations, return to their
nameless existence once
more, having failed to rebel
against their own marginalised conditions
Talking of preferences in civil
services, Dinesh Raut, director of
Career Point, a leading coaching
institute in Guwahati, says, “Not
many people apply for UPSC or
APSC services. Even if they do,
few appear for the examinations
and fewer still reach the mains.
The count of women candidates
is even lower.”
According to statistics, around
3,000 candidates from the state
appeared for the UPSC exams, out
of which around 70 qualified for
the mains. For APSC, nearly
30,000 applied but only 14,000 appeared and about 3,200 cleared
the prelims.
Although measures have been
taken to encourage more women
to opt for civil services, the number of female candidates has been
low over the past years, he adds.
Raut thinks that mass communication has attracted both men
and women in large numbers over
the past decade, with media and
advertising positions being the
most sought after.
Women are, therefore, slowly
but surely, venturing forth into
new grounds and carving out a
name for themselves. Things can
only get better from here.