Women 'Disempowerment' - Kiran Bedi

India's first woman IPS Officer

Women empowerment - the agenda endorsed and publicised as the 'key' reason behind Pratibha Patil's appointment as India's first woman president - lost the little merit it had gained in some pockets, when it came to giving India's first woman IPS officer the post of the Delhi police commissioner. India's first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi lost the Delhi police chief's post to a junior male colleague.

Women officials in the civil services are in fact very small in number-as less as just 15 per cent. It's a strange coincidence that such a thing has happened three times over in the Civil Services just in the recent future at the top level alone.

It happened in the Indian Administrative Service when a lady was in the race for the post of Cabinet Secretary. It's happened with the Indian Foreign Services officer Veena Sikri who was in the race for the post of foreign secretary (losing out to Shiv Shankar Menon). And now it has happened to Kiran Bedi, an IPS officer. Three women who were making it in terms of seniority have all lost out.

While there seems to be no specified report on the basis of the decision and why it was justified to exclude Bedi, rumors from the home ministry suggests Kiran Bedi was barred from the post because she is seen as 'anti-establishment' person-someone above the system who symbolizes the middle-class hero. Some sources in the Home Ministry say that it was her non-involvement in active policing that has acted as a deterrent.

Lets review her inexperience in Active Policing :

Handled the narcotics control bureau. Has done four-years of proactive police training. Trained seventy percent of the force, has done 16 different countries of the world in peace-keeping which meant totally reviving police systems in these broken down countries. Handled Mizoram and by the time she finished her tenure of two-and-half-years of hard area posting, she achieved considerable progress as the insurgent groups signed surrender and put cessation of arms. Traffic assignments-one during Asian games, and then commonwealth heads of governments in Goa.

Well, its clear what's not the reason for her exclusion, now.

Complying figurehead : Pratibha Patil

All the incidents, including this is an apt reflection of India’s patriarchal society, indicating only certain “type” of women would be allowed to rise in corridors of power (so much for having a Western woman and a certain Sheila Dikshit at the helm of things for the country and the city-state respectively).

Hence a demure, non-threatening complying figurehead Pratibha Patil - who keeps her head covered with her sari pallu - makes an ideal President for UPA, while the short-haired, no-nonsense cop Kiran Bedi - who matches her male counterparts talent-for-talent - is seen a misfit for another top position.

The broader issue here is the need for transparency. I think this applies across the board to all the services. We need an independent bureaucracy as that is one of the key elements of good governance. Again.... Long shot... but achievable