You’ll never guess what the latest decision on the participation of women in the police force has been. This week, Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced a 33% quota for women in the central police force! He also made some general comments about women’s representation in various fields of work, and acknowledged that that should change for policewomen.
This doesn’t mean the state police forces are going to follow suit. But it’s such a big, big deal from the dismal perspective of the average Indian policewoman’s career.
Want to hear more about that perspective? Here are some of our posts on and around women in the Indian police force.
First, a three-part series on the Indian policewoman by award-winning journalist Priyanka Dubey.
Why No One Wants Policewomen In Latehar
Everyone in Latehar police station knows how constable Neetu Kumar was raped on the way to her sister’s funeral. Even the ASI breaks into a grin when he says she did not resist her attackers. While the vitriol flows in Latehar on women’s place in the police force and their supposed inability to handle work, no one is tackling the larger problem that should be most obvious – training, so crucial to the careers of their male peers, remains beyond the reach of women constables.
Ladies. Can They Do It? Can They Be Officers?
After meeting women constables in rural Jharkhand, our writer went to the state capital Ranchi to meet the officers. Inspired by a television show, inspired by dreams of justice, inspired by the thought of a government job, recruited out of sports teams, women join the police force for different reasons and in different ways. But once they get there they hear the same message – that they are not quite good enough.
When Will the Department End its War on the Policewoman?
In the third and final part of her series on policewomen, Priyanka Dubey looks away from central India. Policewomen elsewhere in India too face danger in the shape of their peers and the mighty hydra called The Department. Is change possible?
This Report Tells Us How Our Women in Khakhi are Doing. Do You Want the Good News or Bad News First?
What kind of professional lives do Indian policewomen lead? What kind of support do they get from their peers and superiors, and from the system? What are their working conditions like? Do they get maternity leave, childcare, other facilities? And how satisfied are they with their jobs? The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative‘s (CHRI’s) report on “Women Police in South Asia 2015” answers some of our questions.
Singing in the Streets, Leaving No Mystery Novel Half-Read, Loving Her Police Investigations. This is Who DSP Vishnupriya Was.
DSP Vishnupriya was the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Tiruchengode in Namakkal District, Tamil Nadu. On September 18, 2015, she killed herself. Her family told the media that she had been under pressure from her commanding officers to register a fake case against innocent persons for the murder of V Gokulraj, whose case she was in charge of. Her parents demanded a CBI probe into Vishnupriya’s suicide, but their request was rejected. Here, her family tells us more about what she was like.
No, We Don’t Want to Know What You Think of IPS Officer Merin Joseph’s Hands
Merin Joseph, female IPS officer, was appointed Assistant Superintendent of Police under training in Ernakulam Rural district in 2014 – and has been objectified by the media for her good looks. It all began when she was still an IPS officer in training. The BA Hons graduate was one of the youngest in her batch of officers and had been awesome in passing at first attempt. But none of that mattered after a photograph of her in uniform began making the rounds identifying her falsely as Kochi’s hot new Assistant Commissioner of Police. But an interview of her published in The Hindu had a particularly egregious headline with an even more egregious pun.
Top photo: Director’s Parade, 2014. National Police Academy. Courtesy Merin Joseph Facebook Page.