The working session Started with the Director General, Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR& D), Sh. N. C. Joshi, in the chair. After a short revisit to the First Conference and its recommendations made in 2002, group leaders from 28 states, 3 Union Territories and 7 Central Police Organisations presented their feedback. It was revealed that, while the reports received by the BPR&D indicated that 22 states have created forums for women in police, group leaders of only 7 states and 1 U.T. expressed knowledge of this to have been done. Further, despite funds being allocated through Central Grants, only 14 states were able to give an unqualified ‘yes’ with regard to provision of separate toilet facilities for women in police3.

Mainstreaming of Women in the Police

A session on Mainstreaming of Women in the Police followed. The Subcommittee made its presentation before the conference highlighting the following points:

While the men-women ratio in the country is 53:47 and the total police for every 10,000 population is 14.54, the total women police for 10,000 population is only 0.31. Less than 3 % of the police in India is female.

The small numbers of women in the police not withstanding, there are indications that many states are using women in the police for stereotypical work such as telephone and reception duties.

Taking account of gender equality concerns in policy and programmes, and in administrative, financial and organisational activities could contribute to profound organisational transformation.

While many states have a reservation policy for women, there is no clear strategy regarding recruitment, training, work distribution and promotions, or postings and welfare.

The Sub-Committee also presented before the conference the results of a survey involving 1000 participants from among women in police conducted across 20 states to evaluate women’s contribution to policing. The findings revealed that 64 percent of women had entered the police on merit, while 36 percent of women had been recruited on compassionate grounds. About 25 percent had not received even mandatory basic training so far, while 58 percent have not received any training after basic training4.

With regard to the attitudes of the women themselves, the survey found that 61 percent entered police out of their personal interest, 85 percent are willing to work and 86 percent feel confident they can handle all types of police duties. Yet only 23 percent get to do crime related jobs. A significant number feel that they are dominated by their male colleagues, are not taken seriously, and important positions and opportunities are denied to them.

Professor Jaya Indiresan, the resource person for the session, referred to the findings of a survey covering 250 men and 250 women officers interviewed by her. She made the significant point that mainstreaming should not mean mere tokenism, where a few women are given high profile jobs, but steps to ensure a genuinely level playing field for the general lot of women in law enforcement. She also introduced the concepts of gender audit and gender budgeting by which various areas and aspects of the police organisations can be assessed with regard to equity, opportunities and expenditure
accorded to women and police. Indicators to assess these are required to be identified so that meaningful data can be collected and analysed for informing policy on genuine mainstreaming.

In the open house that followed the presentations, various delegates shared their experiences, which, by and large, supported the findings of the surveys. There were many areas identified for improvement and several practical modalities and processes were suggested for achieving these.

The recommendations that came out of the plenary session emphasised the need for increasing the representation of women in the police force. The insignificant numbers of women in the police need to be addressed on two fronts. Firstly, recruitment of women in police requires to be considerably enhanced. Secondly, conditions in the police need to be made more congenial to encourage women of calibre and potential to choose police as a career.

The organizational culture of any agency is a strong binding factor that assists each individual member to contribute effectively to the common goal. However it can also act as an obstacle to change and is a particularly pervasive stumbling block to change of attitudes. Police, para-military and armed force organizations that require a high degree of individual commitment have correspondingly more powerful organizational cultures that are highly resistant to change. Commitment to change at the highest levels is therefore a definite plus.

Almost every state police force feels the need for more women police officers. Their importance however extends beyond providing guards and escorts for women prisoners or acting as reporting and investigating officers with whom women and child victims are more comfortable. It is their ability to foster organisational change in the police forces, a most difficult and crucial task, which is invaluable and which requires to be focused on. However, this is only possible when women in police acquire a certain critical mass. The small numbers that exist today are more prone, instead, to succumb to the
dominant culture, sometimes even supporting it with greater vigour than the majority elements, in a bid to gain acceptability and approval. Alternatively, they may seek privileged status or shy away from demanding duties.

Another result of low numbers of women police officers is that women tend to be marginalized into ‘soft’ jobs; the inference that women are unsuitable for tough police duties thus becomes selfperpetuating. Even specialist duties such as handling women and child complainants, or deployment at reporting desks in police stations can become identified as ‘soft’ in this context. Mainstreaming of women officers, and posting suitably trained male police officers to posts like the ones mentioned, is an important step towards change in organizational culture as well as in ensuring that the needs of
women and children are not themselves marginalized.

The critical mass recommended is at least a third of the organizational strength.  

The difficulties in achieving such numbers are not insurmountable, but as they also involve reserving posts that could go to men for women, there is considerable reluctance among police managers to accept modifications in recruitment policies. Even the half a dozen states, such as Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, that have a reservation policy for women ranging from ten to thirty-three percent, apply the reservation to fill only new or annual resultant vacancies and are likely to take thirty years or more to
reach the desired percentages. Most states however, do not have any such policies at all, and the conference recommends that all state forces and central police organisations should formulate definite policies in this regard and make aggressive efforts to meet these percentages, including converting posts meant for male police officers where necessary.

Aggressive recruitment policies

Including increased publicity campaigns in both rural and urban settings, utilizing district administration for recruitment of women in police at all levels, and organising recruitment drives in schools and colleges are recommended. A single recruitment procedure, with suitable modifications in physical standards, would be appropriate. All efforts to make the recruitment procedures transparent, gender equitable and free from built-in biases against women need to be encouraged.

It is also essential to improve the environment for women in the police organization so that the situation of carrying women vacancies or not finding suitable women recruits is mitigated. Besides addressing training needs of the police force as a whole, and of women in particular, this involves entrusting more women with mainstream duties of crime prevention and investigation. Supervisory officers at all levels must be encouraged in this respect and their efforts and sincerity on this front should form a part of their annual assessment. Needless to say, this would also involve sensitizing the senior officers to their responsibilities in this regard. Seeing women mainstreamed in this manner will definitely attract more and better women recruits into the police.

Most delegates were of the opinion that separate cadres for male and female police tend to exacerbate the problem of stereotypical duties being assigned to the women in police. Terms such as women police or lady constable, in use in most organisations across the country, are seen as pejorative terms that institutionalise gender differentiated duties and encourage women to perform below their capabilities. The conference recommends a common cadre for men and women police from the lowest to the highest ranks.

There was a consensus that the ‘toughness’ that a potential woman recruit associates with a police job has more to do with working conditions than with job content. Provisions for privacy, such as separate toilets and rest rooms, and ensuring protection from discrimination because of sex, as well as from predatory or casual sexual harassment, would facilitate more women to join the police force and discourage others from seeking early discharge or retirement. It has not been possible to find accurate figures of women who leave the service prematurely, and another of the main recommendations of this conference is that such and other significant data on women in the police may be collected by
the Ministry of Home Affairs on an institutionalized and ongoing basis to enlighten policy and recommendation.

Presentations on Good Practices

Presentations on Good Practices by the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Tamil Nadu followed on the same evening. It was unfortunate that Maharashtra was unable to attend, especially so because many positive reports about effective mainstreaming of women in police had come from this state, particularly from the Commissionerate of Pune.

Tamil Nadu-use of technology in training of women in police

Shri K. Radhakrishnan, Inspector General of Police, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, made an illuminating presentation5 on the use of technology in training of women in police employed in dealing with crimes against women. According to studies, he reported that women facing Domestic Violence believe that taking their problems to the police will do little good because male officers will not be sympathetic, will regard these as private problems, or will be more likely to believe the man’s story.

In recognition of these problems, the Tamil Nadu Government in 2001 spent crores of rupees to sensitize 80,000 male and 4,200 women police officers on gender issues.

Because of their greater sensitivity, women police officers are ideally suited to handle Crimes against Women, but, as another study over the years noted, women in police are insufficiently trained in dispute resolution and in interviewing and counselling techniques. An excessive workload and shortage of staff is exacerbated by insufficient training in record keeping and data management.

The Solution:

On line training in dispute resolution techniques.
Classroom training in interviewing of women victims of domestic violence.
Training in data entry (a database was developed for this purpose.)
Sh. Radhakrishnan presented the detailed CD of the training programme for the BPR&D to disseminate
to various state police organisations for guidance.

Jammu and Kashmir-deployment of women in Anti-Terrorist duties

The next presentation from Jammu and Kashmir, made by Sh Ram Lubhaya6, Inspector General of Police, Director, Sher-e-Kashmir Police Academy, Udhampur, highlighted the training and deployment of women in Anti-Terrorist duties. Sher-e-Kashmir Academy runs special training programs for women including a six week Anti Terrorist Course, with training content covering battle physical efficiency, assault courses and sophisticated weapons handling and firing.

The presentation also covered women police of J&K coping with the proxy war. The Special Operation Group includes women officers in Anti-militancy operations, and women officers have achieved spectacular successes in eliminating top ranking terrorists responsible for killing of policemen, army personnel and civilians.

Some of the prominent women police officers who volunteered to join the SOG group and contributed significantly, shared their experiences with the conference. DSP Ranu Kundal, and Inspectors Shahida Parveen, Sandeep Kour, and Rajni Sharma were given out of turn promotions and awarded gallantry medals for their extraordinary contributions, and listening to their experiences made for an inspiring and illuminating session for the delegates.

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