Women in police: Bihar leads, Bengal one of the lowest among large states

The annual report said that the availability of an adequate number of women in police is essential for reducing the vulnerability of women against crimes

In the wake of the rape-murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata, the West Bengal government last week outlined plans to establish Aparajita special task forces in each district to probe crimes against women and children. Women police officers would lead these special task forces, it said, but women are just 9.6 per cent of the state's police force — one of the lowest in the country.

A day later on Wednesday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Rajasthan approved an increase in reservation for women in the police from 30 per cent to 33 per cent. It would fulfil a promise in its 2023 Assembly election manifesto by amending the state Police Subordinate Service Rules, 1989.

 

However, after decades of 30 per cent reservation (it was first introduced in 1989), women comprise only 10.87 per cent of Rajasthan's 95,325 police personnel, according to the latest Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) data.

The BPR&D’s latest annual data on police organisations, updated until January 1, 2023, stated that the total sanctioned strength of state police forces was 2.7 million (including civil police, district armed reserve (DAR) police, special armed police, and India Reserve Battalion). The actual strength was 2.1 million.

The annual report said that the availability of adequate number of women in police was essential for reducing the vulnerability of women against crimes. It said the existing "women police population ratio" was “still very low”. “Poor representation of women in police is posing serious challenges in dealing with crimes against women and women criminals,” said the report, released in April 2024.

At present, the actual strength of total women police (civil + DAR + special armed police + IRB) is 263,762 (on January 1, 2023), an increase of 7.18 per cent over 246,103 in 2021. The percentage of women police is 12.32 per cent of the actual strength of the total police force in the country, it said.

Interestingly, with 23.66 per cent women representation in its police force, Bihar leads the way among states in implementing women reservation, followed by Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. Among the Union Territories, Ladakh (29.65 per cent) and Chandigarh (22.47 per cent) lead the way, while Jammu and Kashmir has only 5.38 per cent women in its police force. In Delhi Police, women comprise 14.8 per cent women of its 80,583 police personnel.

But the induction of women in police forces has been slow. Women reservations apply at the entry level ranks of constables and sub-inspectors. As a discussion paper from one of the National Conference of Women in Police noted, the 30 or 33 per cent quota for women in police forces “remain very much on paper”. Nowhere is there a detailed recruitment plan or timeline for achieving the target, it said.

Maharashtra, for example, was the first state to reserve 30 per cent police jobs, in 1971. After five decades, it has 18.66 per cent women in its police force. The silver lining was that it had inducted a larger number of women in recent years, with the percentage of women in the state police force up from 12.52 per cent in 2020.

Despite reservations, most north Indian and northeastern states have poor representation of women in their respective police forces. In Uttar Pradesh, women account for 10.49 per cent of the police force, while Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have 7.45 per cent and 7.60 per cent of women representation, respectively.  Women representation is abysmal in the police forces of Manipur (6.48 per cent), Meghalaya (5.80 per cent), and Assam (6.69 per cent).

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, in its report on police modernisation in February 2022, was “anguished” that “women are abysmally underrepresented in the police force”. It asked the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to advise states and Union Territories to create a road map for making the representation of women police to 33 per cent of the total strength a reality.

The committee suggested that the appointment of women in police may be done by creating additional posts rather than converting the vacant posts of male constables. It said the police forces should learn from the defence forces where women are being assigned combat roles, and deploy women in “important challenging roles”.
 

In Madhya Pradesh, when the state government increased women’s reservation from 30 per cent to 33 per cent, the police headquarters and the home department objected on the ground that the majority of the policing work could only be done by men, and a greater number of women police being inducted would be detrimental for the force.