Low female representation in positions of authority
- Despite making up around half of the population, there is little female representation in positions of authority.
- For instance, P V Narasimha Rao, the country’s 10th prime minister, appointed a who’s who of politicians, technocrats, and bureaucrats in June 1991 to usher in the liberalisation of India’s economy. The decisions of this all-male squad affected the lives of all Indians.
Women are underrepresented at the highest levels of government decision-making:
- First of all, the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) just didn’t have enough women employees.
- Men were favoured more than women in the recruiting criteria. Women, for instance, had to quit the army after getting married; they could only enlist when unmarried.
- Due to the elimination of the marital requirement, the ratio of female to male IAS applicants dropped from 1:82 in 1960 to 1:8 in the 1970s.
- Second, such structural modifications happened post-hoc. By 1991, when Rao was putting up his team, women officers were either too junior in rank or persistent institutional barriers precluded them from holding prominent offices.
- Third, despite the removal of entry barriers, women’s abilities were still undervalued. Traditionally, women have only been accepted for “soft” departments.
- There isn’t a single female cabinet secretary, RBI governor, or main economic advisor in India.
Women don’t have enough opportunity despite having tremendous abilities.
- Talent, though, was never the problem. In India, there have been instances of female public servants who were equally, if not more, deserving of holding important posts in the major ministries. One example is Renuka Viswanathan, the first female district magistrate in Karnataka. When Sarla Grewal’s file was brought into Rajiv Gandhi’s office, she had just been appointed as India’s first female principal secretary to the prime minister. Viswanathan would be the best candidate for the position of finance minister, according to Gandhi, who intervened.
- Before being denied the chance to become India’s first female cabinet secretary in the 2000s, Sudha Pillai worked on revising the anti-monopoly statute as joint secretary in the industries ministry.
- Manmohan Singh and Janaki Kathpalia, additional secretary (budget), worked closely together between 1991 and 1995 to create the union budgets. Sindhushree Khullar, the personal secretary of P Chidambaram, the then-minister of commerce, oversaw significant changes to trade policy.
Women’s participation on a worldwide level:
- Organisations like the IMF and the World Bank served as revolving doors via which talent entered India. But when it comes to the executive director (India) position at the World Bank, the majority of this group has been made up of men over the years, and that trend is still present now.
- This is due to the fact that before the 2000s, none of the female leaders in the industrialised nations oversaw major financial institutions.
Current status of women in the civil service:
- The problem of “few” is less urgent now. The 933 candidates selected in the most recent round of the union civil service exams included 320 more women than before.
- In keeping with the record set the year before, they also took six of the top 10 spots, including the top four spots. The fact that more qualified women are now joining the bureaucracy than in the past makes these improvements positive.
Conclusion:
- These numbers do not reflect the number of people who will hold high leadership positions throughout the services, particularly within the ministries of finance, commerce and industry, home, and defence.
- The services now have an additional chance to review their retention and advancement plans for employees so that high-level decision-making roles are not exclusively held by men.
