The Indian Army has begun assigning women officers to command roles for the first time, outside the medical stream, and around 50 of them are set to head units in operational areas, including forward locations, in the operationally critical Northern and Eastern Commands that are responsible for guarding India’s borders with China, as reported by Hindustan Times. According to the news report, the women officers assessed by the selection board were from the 1992 to 2006 batch and were commissioned in various arms and services including Engineers, Signals, Army Air Defence, Intelligence Corps, Army Service Corps, Army Ordnance Corps, and Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. The development comes a month after the army conducted a special selection board to promote 108 women officers to the rank of select-grade colonel — a move aimed at bringing about gender equality in the Indian Army.
In the past, women officers from the Army Medical Corps have been commanding field hospitals, military hospitals, and other medical establishments for decades. Also, a few women doctors in the armed forces have risen to the three-star rank (lieutenant general and equivalent in the other two services).
In January 2023, for the first time in history a woman officer, Captain Shiva Chouhan was deployed at Siachen, the world’s highest and coldest battleground. It also deployed its largest contingent of 27 women peacekeepers in Sudan’s disputed region of Abyei, where they will provide relief and assistance to women and children, and perform security-related tasks in a challenging mission as part of the United Nations Interim Security Force (UNISFA).
Tanks and combat positions in infantry are still no-go zones for women in the army.