When IPS officer Dr. Arti Singh joined the Police Commissionerate after being promoted to the rank of DIG, she became the only woman police commissioner in the country. The Police Commissioner of District Amravati in Maharashtra and a daredevil in every sense, Dr. Singh broke the glass ceiling at every point, proving that gender differences are only a concept that exists in people’s minds.
Today, on the occasion of Women’s Equality Day, Indian Masterminds presents an exclusive feature on Dr. Singh’s take on the kind of equality prevailing among bureaucrats, in today’s time.
BREAKING GLASS CEILINGS
From the very beginning, Dr. Singh has been breaking that invisible gender barrier that prevents women from reaching higher positions in life. The doctor turned IPS officer never gave up on her dream, even after receiving life-threatening intimidations and unsolicited advice, sometimes from her own team.
She stood strong and looked at the dangers on their face when she received postings in extremely dangerous and Naxal-affected regions such as Gadchiroli and Malegaon. Being the first woman IPS officer to have ever set foot in such ‘difficult’ districts, Dr. Singh was advised by several people, including her team, to apply for a transfer, but she did not budge and bravely handled everything that came her way, leaving her team surprised.
Her ‘Malegaon model’ of handling the Covid-19 pandemic in the best way possible drew a template for other districts and was praised by one and all.
Dr. Singh said, “This doesn’t stop here. There are many more glass ceilings that I am yet to break. My Commissionerate had been non-existent for the last 23 years and now I am the first lady CP of this Commissionerate. It’s a milestone for me and all the ladies in the service. I look forward to reaching many more such milestones and continuing to inspire others with my work.”
THE ACUTE SHORTAGE OF WOMEN IN BUREAUCRACY
From 1951, when the first woman joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), until 2020, women have made up only 13% of all IAS officers. Of 11,569 IAS officers who entered the civil services between 1951 and 2020, only 1,527 were women. Currently, 21% of serving IAS officers are women, as per data from the National Informatics Centre.
Talking about the prominent reasons behind this discrepancy, Dr. Singh told Indian Masterminds, “According to the Indian Society, the basic responsibility of a woman is to rear and care. A woman plays dual roles in her life. Along with handling her job, she also has to take care of her family responsibilities and children. Taking care of a child is not a single-day job. Till the time they grow up, you have to take care of every little thing for them, which requires a lot of attention. Amongst all this, it becomes extremely difficult for a woman to divide her focus between work and family, thus bringing an end to their careers, in some cases.”
According to her, the irony of it is that, when the women come back to their job, after a gap, the lack of experience and the time lost in between, causes further problems to their career as working institutions are hardly interested to experiment with people with gaps in their work timelines.
“The government has come up with childcare leave for two years but that isn’t sufficient. It is not easy for a woman to leave her two-year-old child behind and come to work. A working woman is different from a working mother. A working woman can still find substitutes for all the household responsibilities but there is no substitute for the role of a mother. I salute all the working mothers in the service and I believe this is the reason why there are such few women in bureaucracy,” stated Dr. Singh.
LACK OF WOMEN IN TOP-NOTCH POSITIONS
It’s 2022 and we are still coming across the first woman police commissioner, first woman DM of particular districts, and several other firsts for women officers in the country. It takes a bureaucrat several levels and steps to reach the topmost positions in the bureaucracy and it is not an affair of just a few years, but, why is there a discrepancy when it comes to women?
According to Dr. Singh, one of the reasons for this can be that 15-20 years back, not many women were interested in coming out of their houses to work, and become civil servants. There were hardly a few women officers in the country, which is a major reason why we barely find women in the topmost positions in the bureaucracy, and these positions go to men who have been in the service for that long.
“Secondly, when you take a gap in the service to fulfill family responsibilities and come back to work, your experience and exposure are not as much as your male colleagues who have no gaps in their resume and have been continuously working in the service. This is another practical reason why we don’t find many women on the topmost posts,” she told Indian Masterminds.
EMPATHISE, DON’T SYMPATHISE
She further said that to bring women on an equal panel with men, the utmost important thing is to bring a change in mindsets. The male counterparts should accept and empathize that every woman is playing a dual responsibility in their life. It’s a 24-hour job for working mothers. After fulfilling their professional duties during the day, they have to come back home and begin their motherly duties, as well. They hardly get time to rest. It is not easy for them.
“Even though a woman is overburdened, she does justice to both her jobs so the mentality that women are less productive has to go away and a certain empathy should come in male counterparts for their female colleagues,” she said.
The 2006-batch IPS officer also said that the feeling of owning responsibilities should come to women as well, and they should not use their dual lives as an excuse to get out of work, until absolutely necessary. “One should not take advantage of their situations and try to make adjustments in a way that they can fulfill all their responsibilities.”
A MESSAGE FOR ALL WOMEN
Dr. Singh wishes to give a message to all the women out there, “Equality is in the mindset, and the moment you change your mindset, more so from the male section, we would be able to achieve equality and there would come a time when we won’t have to especially celebrate this day and remind everyone that women should be treated equally.”
Indian Masterminds wishes everyone a Happy Women’s Equality Day.
