Shownotes

The third episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast in partnership with the India Justice Report focuses on the status of women in policing in India. Despite the target set by the Indian Home Ministry in 2009 to achieve 33% women in the police force - representation has increased by a mere 5% in a decade. While many states have mandated 10% to 33% reservation for women in the police, not one of these States has met its goal. With one woman in every four police officials, the state of Bihar has emerged as the unlikely champion and the best performing state across India. With just 215000 women, just over 10% of Indian police is female. The share of women among the higher ranks is even lower at 8.7%. 

A significant share of policewomen suffer due to patriarchal prejudices, strong masculine work culture and are considered unfit for on-field tasks. Women personnel are usually limited to in-house tasks such as maintaining registers/data, filing FIRs and other complaints, whereas male police officers are engaged in more field-based tasks such as investigation, patrolling, law and order duties, etc. Most stations also lack basic infrastructure such as separate toilets , creche, changing rooms for women.

In this fascinating and eye-opening conversation my guests Meeran Chadha Borwankar and Device Prasad talk about the systemic issues that hold women back, and what actions can be taken to reach the target numbers. 

👉🏾 What can be done to help creating a more inclusive culture where women can thrive

👉🏾 Reasons why women in police are clustered at the bottom, and what can be done to promote their rise through the ranks

👉🏾 What states can do to attract and retain women and meet the target 33%

👉🏾 The politics of it

In a recent article Meeran Borwankar slammed the demand for all women police stations as a panacea to pervasive challenges. 

“An officer commented that they “compartmentalise women officers rather than give them the independence of work”. It is “a step in the reverse direction” because women officers are interested in all kinds of police work, not just in women-related matters.” 

Memorable Passages from the episode

👉🏾 Thanks for having me here Sudha. 

👉🏾Thank you Sudha. 

👉🏾 Sudha that the current ratio I would say is around 10% plus of the women in police, so we are gradually moving towards achievable target of 33%. But instead of having exclusive recruitment for women, every year, most of the states earmark 33% quota. So that is the reason why the upward movement is slow, but certain states like Bihar went in for exclusive recruitment for women in police. And Bihar, it may surprise most of our listeners, today has about 25% of women. So I don't see a reluctance on part of the women to join police anymore, it was there in eighties and nineties, this century the department has opened its arms for women and they have accepted it. So if we don't have exclusive recruitments, this would be a slow process but if like Bihar, even Himachal today has 19% women, if more than the 30% are recruited every year, then we will reach this target earlier. 

👉🏾 Yeah, so just taking from what Meeran ma'am says, the startling rise of Bihar was actually, it went from 7% to 25% women in a space of five years - 2015 to 2019. So I think studying that experience, breaking it down, finding out how did the department do it, what were the ground measures taken, what were the policy measures on recruitment taken? That in itself would be a big eye-opening exercise to understand practically how a police department raised its numbers in recruitment so sharply. So I think it's a good example and it's really encouraging that there are examples like this. Himachal also has seen a rise over this five-year period, Gujarat also jumped from 4% to 12% in the space of five years. So in fact, I think we are seeing increased recruitment of women into the police and so again this question that women are not joining is perhaps not correct. But I'm sure we'll have more conversation about how that is just the beginning of a woman's journey also within a police force, of joining it, getting there. What happens once you're there, that's again a whole another set of issues and challenges which have to be addressed. 

👉🏾 I would just say that in 2010 Bihar had only 2% women in police, and in less than 20 years it has managed to take this up to 25.3%. How did it do this, as Devika said, I mean, it's worth a very close study so that we can identify some good practices. But what I would say is that there are only six states, all right, six large states which have women’s share police in double digits. And most of the large states are obviously under 10, and when you look at states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, states known for registering high number of crimes against women, in those states, the share of women police is still quite abysmal.

👉🏾 One thing I would say is that I think the question of crimes against women or crimes based on gender, we can treat those a little bit separately from crimes against minorities and then, if we look at that, then there'll be crimes against Dalits, crimes against Adivasis. So people on the margins in India and the effect of crime on them, or police misconduct on them, all of these are issues on their own and need to be unpacked in that way. 

👉🏾 I agree that in a democracy, the police should at least look like and try to represent the society, which it serves. In a country like India that's a very difficult thing to do because of our sheer diversity. So that's something which then a department, the leadership has to consciously keep working at - increased representation of underrepresented groups in the police. And that again is I think a sort of long haul issue just like increased representation for women. It's something which is going to take a long time and it needs a commitment which is not just in the moment or when something happens or is sort of fashionable, but it's a deep-rooted commitment, which then as police leadership changes that commitment shouldn't change. So the institutional commitment to this kind of representation is also something which really needs deep commitment over a long term. But I mean on the question also of how to address crimes, it's a question which needs many answers and there's so many factors at play, so I'll just limit it to this question of representation and I do feel, certainly of underrepresented groups in the police, that is something which perhaps would help.

👉🏾 So while I agree with Devika on all the points, I would take it further and say that police leadership has to first accept the need for broader representation, talk about it, and then go in for policy changes. Devika has highlighted that individual changes are erased once an officer goes out, posted out, is transferred out; so institutional policy changes to give more representation to gender, to minorities is the way out. And for that we have to first admit that we do not have adequate representation of various sectors of society. I know that every year, at least in Maharashtra where I worked, we would not be able to fill the vacancies for scheduled tribes. So even with our best efforts, we could not fill the vacancies and the vacancies would be taken over for the next year. But for gender now we have both 33% reservation and willing young girls, and for that I feel, special the recruitment is what would reduce this gap. From say, one decade which it would take routine, to four to five years as a Bihar they have shown. But to face the reality and to take institutional policy decision is the way I see forward. 

👉🏾 So in 2015-16, we conducted a research in Maharashtra because in Maharashtra we started having reservation for women in 1993, and it was more than two decades. So we wanted to see the satisfaction level of women in police and we had a sample of constables and of sub-inspectors, working at the police station level. We did not cover the women working in special units, like control room, traffic or computer sections. And we found that about 20% of women constables, sub-inspectors were extremely unhappy with the environment and with the cooperation given to them by the male staff. So the study highlighted that about 50% of the women are not happy and about 20% of them out of this 50 were extremely unhappy. And they flagged two-three issues, one was that they needed special training, especially because they said they're ambitious and they would like to have leadership trainings. Then they talked of the need for experience sharing workshops. They wanted to know how others among them are coping with night rounds, with small children, with pregnancy and the kind of atmosphere at the field level at the police station, and then this Issue which they flag that they do not get adequate cooperation from their male colleagues. 

👉🏾So these three things, I thought if we start working on that instead of confining them to special units. We have them in police stations, we give them the training that they need, we support them during the sensitive periods like a pregnancy, like monthly periods or like post-pregnancy having small children; they would love to work in the field as meaningful contributors to the police station. And it would not only be the gain of the police department or the police stations, but citizens would immensely gain with a healthy, positive and a sensitive, empathetic women at the field level. 

👉🏾 I think the crux of the point is this feeling that in CHRIs work and interactions with women police officers, I think this notion that we are not seen as equals by our male colleagues and we're certainly not seen as fit to be police officers by our male colleagues. I think that's perhaps the biggest challenge that women face and everything kind of stems from there. Both at the field in an operational situation, but also in terms of leadership and decision-making et cetera. So until that fundamental inequality, and then also that sense of inequality is fixed. I mean you can recruit many women into the police, but if they are at very junior ranks, at only at the ranks of constable, they are not getting into leadership positions, et cetera, they're not heading operational units like police stations and districts; then there'll always be an imbalance and women will always be marginalised within the police, so that marginalisation is what needs to be addressed and it is still very much there. 

👉🏾 So Sudha see we cannot talk about of women and police as a broad category, being one unit. The question you have posed is responded to, handled differently by say women who are in leadership position like women belonging to Indian police service or women who are recruited direct as Dy S.Ps

👉🏾 They I think are able to assert and they are able to handle where they're not getting proper response from their juniors, seniors, or colleagues. And to a great extent, they are able to set these kinds of wrong responses into the correct ones, because they by the very nature of their entry levels, their basic qualities; they are in much better position to respond to and handle an atmosphere which may not be very conducive to their presence. 

👉🏾 But even the study which I quoted earlier, the sample was of sub-inspectors and constables, when we asked about the satisfaction level, so dissatisfaction of women constables was much higher than men of constables, which shows that women constables are finding the atmosphere more hostile, or maybe they are not able to correct, align or modify that hostile atmosphere. Women sub-inspectors again, it's a leadership position, field-level leaders, they are able to correct that and ensure that even if it's not very cordial, it comes to cooperative or acceptance levels. So I would say that we can broadly divide the response of the women at the constable level at middle-level leadership, which is sub-inspectors and Dy S.P and at top-level leadership, which is direct IPS.

👉🏾 So Indian police servicewomen face much lesser difficulties than constables, who are also not able to respond the way they would like to. Middle level, I think may not have police stations very accepting, very cooperative, but I must say in Maharashtra they are able to assert. So the constable level needs maximum support training and a positive atmosphere or positive messages from not only their male colleagues, even from female leaders. So that's the way I would like to think that there are three broad levels; field levels, middle leadership, and top leadership and I see maximum difficulties at the police station level at the field level women constables facing.

👉🏾 So I agree that there are different sets of challenges and certainly more acute challenges for women at the junior and certainly at the field ranks and for constables. But I do wonder if there are certain thing which all women have to traverse and face. IPS women might just like mam said, it just might be easier for them, they might be more prepared for those conversations. So the notion that, one that physical strength is such an important part of policing and then tied to that that men are physically stronger than women. And even if that's the case, but there may be other aspects of physicality, which, I mean, it may not be that every single man is stronger than every single women and there may be other aspects which women may be, they may be more agile in other ways, et cetera, there may be things that even in physicality, women will be able to show. But this notion that one, of physical strength and the prioritising of physical strength, and then the other thing of pregnancy and of course monthly periods, it's not something which is just taken on board naturally that when a woman enters your organisation, these are things you have to prepare for.

👉🏾I think women still...... it's almost like facing a stigma, especially in an organisation like the police, where there's a feeling that here is either an officer or woman constable who for nine months may be out of commission this is something that we have to navigate around and it's something which may disadvantage us. So I wonder if some of these attitudes are still running through the police organisation, across the hierarchy and which I think they are also discriminatory and discriminatory based on gender, very specifically, and attributes and experiences that only women go through. So I think that some of that is probably also at play and in some way it will affect everybody. But I mean of course that some, will be able to navigate that much better than others. 

👉🏾 I was wondering what Meeran ma'am thinks, why is it important to have a as balanced as possible police force. I mean I think maybe it's important to kind of revisit the fundamental question, a lot of tokenism is going on within the police force that they have to have some women so let's have them at the constable level, let's make it difficult for them. But why is it important to have women in the police?

👉🏾 Because Valay when we think of police we only think of crime. But mind you about 30% to 40% of time is gone in dealing with non-cognisable cases, which means, neighbour dispute, complaints about too much noise, dispute about water; we have so many women coming to police stations, harassment by the family, drunkard husbands beating their wives.

👉🏾So it's not a token if we sit in a police station, I would say women accused involved in crime are less, women victim and women coming to the police stations for non-cognisable cases, is very high. So I would definitely champion that our police station should represent or cater to the citizens as per of the profile of the citizens, since my feeling is that about 40% to 50% of the complainants we catered to, are either women as complainants or as victims. So we must have a much higher number of the women, than the present 10% that the country has.

👉🏾 Okay. Sudha retention is not an issue. The whole country wants government jobs because of the security which they provide. So once inducted, keeping them within the department is not an issue, keeping them motivated, aligned with the purpose for which they have been brought in and to enable them to perform to the best of their abilities; that is an issue which I would say needs more attention, more training, more special training for women.

👉🏾 So, in terms of some very practical measures also that can be taken, like ma'am was saying that recruitment drives helped very much. So how much at the district level are targeted recruitment drives going on so that a police department can really ensure that it's doing everything it can to meet it's a reservation quota. So pre-recruitment, you can't wait for the time of recruitment to suddenly start advertising and you think that women will come. If it is something to be really imbibed, then it has to be a continuous process. So targeted district-wise recruitment drives in states. And if the quota for women for instance stay unfulfilled to carry those forward and ensure that they're only filled by women, even if that takes a little bit more time, rather than by men.

👉🏾 And I think police departments already do it, but conducting yearly baseline assessments of rank wise strength of women, before recruiting, just to see what is the gap and how much has to be filled. So almost like a day to day work, I think would be something which would help. One positive thing, which at least in urban settings, is that for instance, in Delhi, I don’t know if it is still the case, but certainly at the very beginning of the year in January, every district head of a police district in Delhi was a woman. Now I don't know if to April 2022, if that continues because of transfers, et cetera. But I mean, it's really great that that has happened. And I think in Bangalore too, again which is an urban police commissioner, again at the district levels women are coming to leadership positions. So these are some small signs of hope which are leading somewhere, it's not always just lip service, but these are still few and far between. 

👉🏾 So annual assessment report, confidential report and they are institutionalised from constable up to the senior-most officer. We write about them and then it's not one person's view, whatever you write your superior has to agree and superior to that has to accept. So that issue of assessing their performance is as good or as bad as of male counterparts. So why women don't leave, I'll give you one example, once I was visiting police lines in Pune, and I found two...