Explainer: Widening ambit of women in armed forces over 137 years

The Ministry of Defence’s decision to induct women into the Territorial Army (TA) is a step towards increasing the role of women in the Army’s rank and file, and moving towards their induction into arms and services beyond the Corps of Military Police.

Recruitment into the TA’s Home and Heath battalions, which are primarily Infantry battalions comprising troops drawn from local areas where the unit is located, would require women personnel to undertake tasks such as area domination, cordon and search, intelligence coordination, road-opening duties, disaster relief and aid to civil administration. Such battalions were specially raised for Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast.

While the entry of women in TA ranks is a new development for the force, which employs gainfully employed citizens who can be mobilised in times or war or an emergency, women officers have been part of it since 2019. They are serving in ecological, oil sector and railway engineer units as well as in Engineer Regiments along the Line of Control and as staff officers in TA establishments.

All-round presence

Except for the Infantry, Mechanised Infantry and the Armoured Corps, women officers now serve in almost all streams and branches across the Army, Air Force and the Navy, though their role in the rank and file of the services is at present limited to provost in the Army and a few technical trades in the other services.

The only exception to women in combat roles is the Special Frontier Force, a Special Forces unit composed primarily of Tibetan nationals in India. Also known as Vikas Force or Establishment 22, it was raised after the 1962 war with China to conduct covert operations behind enemy lines in case of another war with China. Barring this, no Special Forces in the three services have women.

The 1888 saga

The contemporary history of Indian women serving in the military goes back 137 years when the Indian Military Nursing Service was established in 1888 under the British, marking the first formal entry for women in support roles.

This was followed by the Women’s Auxiliary Corps (India), formed in 1942 during the Second World War. As many as 11,500 women served with this Corps till the end of the war, performing logistics and support duties.

In 1958 began a new chapter for the defence forces when regular commission for women doctors was allowed in the Army Medical Corps. Women doctors in the three services have risen to the highest level, holding the rank of Lieutenant General and equivalent. In fact, the current Director General Armed Forces Medical Services — the head of the tri-service military medical establishment — is a woman.

Non-combat, combat arms

It was about 34 years after the first woman officer donned the olive green that the military’s doors were opened to women in the non-medical stream. Short Service Commission in non-combat arms was approved in 1992, making women eligible to join, over the years, as transport and helicopter pilots, air traffic controllers, Intelligence, administrative, logistics, legal and engineering branches and some arms like the Signals and Engineers.

Later, the Army allowed women officers into the Air Defence and thereafter the Army Aviation Corps in 2020, and more recently, the Artillery, a combat arm, in 2023.

IAF, Navy journey

The year 2015 was a milestone in Indian military aviation when the IAF decided to induct women pilots into the fighter stream, with the first such woman qualifying to undertake combat missions in 2019.

The Indian Navy, which has its own air arm, gave wings to its first woman fighter pilot in 2025. Women have also been deployed onboard warships since 2020 and have also held command at sea.

The Air Force and the Navy have integrated women in all combat and support branches. They have also been selected for command assignments, including that of combat and combat support units, in all three services.

A landmark ruling in 2020 by the Supreme Court granted permanent commission to women officers in all services at par with their male counterparts, which heretofore was limited to the medical stream, including nursing officers, and since 2008, the Judge Advocate General’s Branch and the Army Education Corps.

This enables them to serve beyond the earlier term of 14 years, promotion to the rank of Colonel and equivalent and beyond and other benefits like pension.

Consequent to this, women candidates were also permitted into the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, a tri-service institution for permanent commission, in 2021, with the first batch passing out after the three-year course in May 2025. This again happened after intervention by the apex court.