Officers, not Gentlemen

Catch fair and petite Lt Pradnya Janorkar sprint the last lap in a 10-kilo metre exercise run, easily a leg ahead of many of her male col...

Catch fair and petite Lt Pradnya Janorkar sprint the last lap in a 10-kilo metre exercise run, easily a leg ahead of many of her male colleagues. Watch a determined Lt Sukhwinder Kaur deftly hammer a nail into a floating pontoon bridge. See an erect Lt Amandeep Aulakh stamp her boot-clad feet in clockwork precision as she rises her arm in a crisp military salute. And you know they are soldiers who will never be satisfied taking lessons in closed classrooms.

For the six women in their early twenties, undergoing training at the College of Military Engineering CME, Pune, the 106 Young Officers Course 8211; the first in the country where they8217;re being trained along with male officers 8211; is a promise of field postings and regimental tenures, of stints at Siachen, the highest batttlefield in the world, and encounters with militants, something that hasn8217;t come their way so far.

The largely-physical combat engineering training, which the six women are undergoing along with 69 male coursemates, is a big step forward towards entry into the Army8217;s fighting arms and it has come with the blessings of the Engineer-in-Chief, Lt-General A Sinha, who was quick to sense the growing discontent among the women in olive with their lot of easy postings and cushy staff appointments. It also settles the debate over whether women fit into a fighting Army.

8220;When lady officers joined the Army initially, it was understood that they wouldn8217;t be given hardship postings since they were basically appointed to staff and MES positions, which don8217;t involve taking up field engineering tasks,8221; says Lt-General S D Sohoni, Deputy Commandant, CME. 8220;But the feedback we received was that the girls wanted to be treated on a par with the male officers and felt their calibre was being underestimated.8221;

After much deliberation, the Army top brass decided to give them a chance to prove their battle worthiness, especially because they8217;ve been winning their spurs ever since they entered this all-male institution. 8220;They are taking the Army as a challenge and their level of motivation is often higher than that of the male officers,8221; says Sohoni.

The past few years have also spelt out a gradual change in the psyche of the male officers and the Army is slowly but surely growing out of its indoctrinated protective attitude towards women. Senior officers who found themselves conditioned to rise each time a lady officer entered the room are learning to sit through briefings and give stern dressing downs, whenever required.

8220;Respect for women is something we have inherited in the Army,8221; explains Sohoni. 8220;Initially, senior officers could not really decide if they should treat these girls as ladies or as officers.8221; But with time, a balance is being arrived at.

Story continues below this ad

The Army8217;s other major apprehension was whether the fighting men would accept women in command. 8220;Our troops come from the villages with old values and culture, where men are expected to dominate, so we feared these girls would not be able to handle men,8221; admits Sohoni. An experiment was carried out by sending some women officers to the regiments and letting them interact with a cross-section of troops. 8220;We discovered,8221; says the general, 8220;that the troops did the same task with as much enthusiasm.8221;

The confidence of the women has obviously helped. 8220;Once you put on the uniform, and the troops see you as an officer commanding them, they make no distinctions,8221; says Aulakh, who calls herself 8220;an officer first and a lady afterwards.8221; She sees the Young Officers Course as a testing ground holding out the promise of actual Army action, something the women seem to be dying to do. 8220;We did not join the Army to be instructors,8221; says Lt. Sukhwinder Kaur, a 22-year-old powerhouse of enthusiasm and energy. 8220;We want to experience the adventure and the challenges.8221; And the women seem to be in the thick of both.

Each day, the training sessions start at 6 am and end at 10 pm with a roll call, that is, if the officers are not being sent on an all-night camp or a recce exercise.

It is tough, Kaur admits, but this is the course that8217;ll teach them the art of real warfare, interaction with troops, camouflage, building bridges, field engineering, handling improvised explosive devices, bomb disposal, and other such activities that attracted them to the Army in the first place.

Story continues below this ad

The brief to officers commanding them is to be indiscriminate. 8220;We are not making any concessions for the women here, unlike at the Officers Training. Academy OTA,8221; says Colonel Vinod Choudhary, Officer-In-Charge, YOs.

8220;They have to do the same tasks and follow the same timings as the male officers. We8217;re training soldiers and no compromises can be made on the battlefield. The endeavour is not to entertain any type of discrimination; they are all being trained to become better officers.8221;

It8217;s a sentiment echoed by the women who opted for the Combat YOs course even as they were graduating out of the Chennai-based OTA. And it certainly isn8217;t a course for the chicken-hearted. As Lt. Abhishek Khatri, one of the male officers attending the course, puts it: 8220;We now know what troops are facing on the ground.8221;

But the women in their midst blend in unobtrusively, the sweat on their faces reflecting the olive green of their tucked-in combats, besides their determination to succeed in a man8217;s world. 8220;Each to handle one man8217;s load,8221; bellows the instructor, a sun-baked subedar sahib, waiting to unload a pontoon bridge from a Three Tonne. He does not even look up to see which of the load-bearers are women. Everyone8217;s just one of the boys, after all.