Siachen: Another gender barrier falls

The deployment of Captain Shiva Chouhan at Siachen is imbued with symbolism. Her presence is a beacon to thousands of young women aspiring to serve in the military because it represents the shattering of the last apparent gender barrier, physical endurance

When the first women marched into the Indian military’s ranks in the 1990s, the battle for equal status and dignity for female soldiers seemed arduous. Women officers have since cracked one military glass ceiling after another under trying conditions, with the burden of intense scrutiny on their backs, and fighting the headwinds of outdated ideas about gender and combat permeating sections of the military brass. Another landmark was added to this journey when the Indian Army deployed a woman officer for the first time at the Siachen glacier.

Captain Shiva Chauhan of Fire and Fury Sappers became the first woman officer to be operationally deployed post-completion of arduous training in Kumar Post on the Siachen glacier (ANI)

The deployment of Captain Shiva Chouhan at Siachen is imbued with symbolism. Like other soldiers, she will have a three-month stint in the frozen landscape where the temperature can dip to -60 °C. Captain Chouhan is from the Corps of Engineers and underwent a month’s training at the Siachen Battle School before being deployed at the glacier, the world’s coldest and highest battleground, on Tuesday. Her presence is a beacon to thousands of young women aspiring to serve in the military because it represents the shattering of the last apparent gender barrier, physical endurance, and comes just weeks after the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy allowed women officers to join their special forces units. It also shows that as gendered blinkers fall away, thinking is fast changing within the forces keen to harness the potential, intelligence and bravery of half of the country’s population. Tanks and combat positions in the infantry may still be no-go zones for women, but as Captain Chouhan’s feat shows, a new era is quietly but determinedly on its way.