In a big-budget Bollywood film slated to release next month, actor Rani Mukerji plays a no-nonsense senior police inspector who struts around with a gun, busting gangs of human traffickers. The film is titled Mardaani (Brave Like A Man), and the name itself is an indication of how rare it is to find women police officers in India.
Even though the number of women in the Indian police force has been increasing gradually over the past few years, policewomen still form just a marginal minority within the country’s khaki force.
According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, there were a total of 114,338 policewomen across India in 2013 out of a total force of 17.3 lakh, representing just 6.6% of all police personnel. This figure in 2009 was an even lower 4.2%, as recorded by the NCRB.
Given the high number of atrocities against women committed across India, political leaders have been debating, for several years, the need to reserve 33% of positions within the police force for women. While the debate continues, the current ground realities are far from ideal, as these graphs of the number of civil and armed policewomen in India indicates:
In 2013, there were just 59 women officers in senior ranks like that of the director general, additional director general, inspector general or deputy inspector general. In the same year, there were 722 officers holding posts of various superintendents, while 9,466 were inspectors and sub-inspectors of various ranks.
Across the country, the number of all-women police stations, set up to specifically deal with crimes against women, has been fluctuating for the past five years, but continues to remain small:
“Women make up half the population of the country and given the amount of gender violence in India, it is imperative to have a healthy balance of women in the police force,” said Dolphy D’Souza, the Mumbai-based convener of the Police Reforms Watch, a national non-profit forum that promotes police reforms. “In the absence of that balance, sensitive policing is the casualty.”
While many states claim they have trouble filling in vacancies for policewomen. D’Souza believes the low proportion of women in the force is not because of a lack of women police aspirants.
“What campaigns do our governments run to motivate women to join the force? What facilities are provided to make them feel welcome?” asked D’Souza. “The main problem here is lack of political will.”
Even though the number of women in the Indian police force has been increasing gradually over the past few years, policewomen still form just a marginal minority within the country’s khaki force.
According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau, there were a total of 114,338 policewomen across India in 2013 out of a total force of 17.3 lakh, representing just 6.6% of all police personnel. This figure in 2009 was an even lower 4.2%, as recorded by the NCRB.
Given the high number of atrocities against women committed across India, political leaders have been debating, for several years, the need to reserve 33% of positions within the police force for women. While the debate continues, the current ground realities are far from ideal, as these graphs of the number of civil and armed policewomen in India indicates:
In 2013, there were just 59 women officers in senior ranks like that of the director general, additional director general, inspector general or deputy inspector general. In the same year, there were 722 officers holding posts of various superintendents, while 9,466 were inspectors and sub-inspectors of various ranks.
Across the country, the number of all-women police stations, set up to specifically deal with crimes against women, has been fluctuating for the past five years, but continues to remain small:
“Women make up half the population of the country and given the amount of gender violence in India, it is imperative to have a healthy balance of women in the police force,” said Dolphy D’Souza, the Mumbai-based convener of the Police Reforms Watch, a national non-profit forum that promotes police reforms. “In the absence of that balance, sensitive policing is the casualty.”
While many states claim they have trouble filling in vacancies for policewomen. D’Souza believes the low proportion of women in the force is not because of a lack of women police aspirants.
“What campaigns do our governments run to motivate women to join the force? What facilities are provided to make them feel welcome?” asked D’Souza. “The main problem here is lack of political will.”
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