India 360: Are our defence forces stressed out?

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The Indian Army is making news for all the wrong reasons including rapes, suicides, fragging and murders.

A woman Army officer committed suicide at her official residence in Kunjawani army camp in the outskirts of the Jammu.

Captain Megha Razdan of 113 Engineering Regiment (Electrical and Mechanical Engineer) committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling fan by a bed sheet.

In June last year, Lieutenant Sushmita Chakraborty, serving with an Army Service Corps (ASC) battalion in the Northern Command, had allegedly committed suicide by shooting herself with a rifle in J&K's Udhampur district.

There have been numerous instances of officers and jawans committing suicide in insurgency-affected areas.

The question that was discussed on the CNN-IBN show India 360 was: Are we putting our defence forces under too much stress?

On the panel to tackle the debate was former Army chief, Gen S R Chaudhary and former diplomat, Veena Sikri.

Subject To Pressure

So are the forces that are now running short of manpower being subjected to too much work resulting in suicides?

Gen S R Chaudhary reminded of two issues underlining the problem, one of the suicides by two female officers and the other issue and the bigger one was male officers committing suicides.

Gen Chaudhary said that an extensive research was being carried out to find out about the cause of suicides. Eighty-five to ninety per cent of suicides were due to the pressure of being away from home.

A study that was also a part of the extensive research had come to a conclusion that the humiliating treatment meted out to the officers by the seniors, so are those who have chosen to serve the army at a receiving end?

Gen Chaudhary observed that life in the army particularly for women could be exceedingly harsh in terms of habitat, in terms of posting, in terms of disruptions and in terms of a separated family life.

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Position Of Women Officers

So are women not in the best of position to serve in the army?

Gen Chaudhary said that unlike the Army, suicide cases in the other forces was not prevalent. So in comparison to the other forces, life in the army was much tougher and far more disturbing.

Veena Skiri opined that women need to be included in the army and they need to be integrated in all sections of society

‘The conditions are harsh in the army but groups can be formed so that the women can take part in the activities that also meet the kind of physical demands asked for in the Army,” said Sikri.

So has the social experiment to include women in the army really succeeded?

Sikri said the success was not primary but the experiment had to continue as women performing were quite well in the army including the medial core areas and in many other aspects of the army. Women were in the front so they should not be discriminated regarding any activity.

But there have been claims that women officers have been used for PR jobs. They are not given level-playing fields so that could be reason of frustrations leading to suicide.

“Women are prohibited from traditional combat duties for a variety of reasons. However, in the modern sense of the word, combat duty includes electronic warfare and psychological warfare and cyber warfare. However, women are taking their responsibilities very seriously and doing well,” said Gen Chaudhary.

So now is the Army compromising with the kind of people it is recruiting? There were many women who came from small towns and are not aware of what lies ahead for them.

“Nobody knows what lies for them in future. However, once you get in the army and the training starts then you slowly adjust,” said Gen Chaudhary

So ultimately does question arise about women facing discrimination in the Army?

Sikri said that women were the most discriminated group not only in the society but also in the Army as well so there was a need to get rid of the problem.

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