NDA and Lady Cadets – A Long Awaited Change

Kaamya Karthikeyan, Mumbai

The Supreme Court order on September 22nd to induct ladies as cadets in NDA has spread like wildfire through the country and is now a household topic in every house in the country, most of all in a fauji environment. And I have genuinely felt since Day 1 that this initiative was long pending. It is finally time for women to enter combat roles in the defence forces and inducting them into cadet training institutions is the first step towards this. As for the myth surrounding capabilities of lady officers in combat roles, I feel that tough lady officers trained by one of the finest defence training establishments in the world will be able to bear the cold of Siachen or the heat of Rajasthan as well as any male officer.

The defence forces are no place for the weak of body and mind – agreed. But the ladies cadets joining NDA would have gone through the same scrutiny of clearing SSB. They would be as smart and as tough as all the other cadets there and only if they are, they will have the honour of training as a cadet. They will face the same harsh training for the 4 years when they are cadets and the same tough life for the rest of their service. If they are ready to and capable of enduring this, then why not!

Our girls will be as strong as our boys. The enemy will neither slow down nor think of our lady officers as weak because we will make them strong. I am a mountaineer and I have stayed at length for weeks in the mountains. I can assure you of this – if the lady officers are tough, which they will be, there will be no stopping them. Neither the cold nor the tough terrain of the Himalayas can do anything to the tough grit and determination drilled into the minds of cadets during their training.

Agreed, India has tough neighbours. But even Pakistan, a country which sees women’s rights as a secondary need, has been inducting and commissioning lady cadets for the past 15 years! If they can do it, why can’t we? Coming to the argument of induction in the sailor cadre… India’s education system has not yet bloomed completely. Many girls in rural areas don’t complete their education; and those who do and want to join the forces, would prefer to join in the officer cadre for a better life.

There are so many countries around the world who post lady officers on combat roles – Russia, Ukraine, Australia, Canada, Israel, Finland, France, Germany, Sri Lanka and many more. The US too has been posting women to their most terror-stricken deployment nation, Afghanistan for about 15 years. But I’m not comparing India to any of these countries… they are either developed or are under a need for people in the military. But India has no obligation; just a promise to its girls to provide them with all the opportunities that they are worthy of, and serving their nation definitely tops the list.

Jai Hind!