Guwahati: “Before I begin my speech, I want you all to close your eyes and think of the greatest leader of all time. Okay can I have some answers?” asked Archana Varma IAS, Principal Secretary, Govt of Assam. She knew that most of the answers would be men.
“It is never a woman who comes to mind as a leader. Like when I was given the test, I thought of Mahatma Gandhi,” said Varma.
This was how a Varma began her speech at the first-of-its-kind Women in Government Conclave held in Guwahati, an international platform where renowned leaders representing diverse political parties from around the world came together to discuss how to advance women’s leadership.
“Now again, I want you to close your eyes and think of the characteristics of a great leader,” she went on. This test too generally saw that people use words like charisma, confidence, courageous, powerful, decisive, and disciplined. Whereas recent studies have shown that enduring qualities of leadership are, as the audience there enlightened – empathy, patience, collaboration, communication, and ethics.
This was where she felt that women, really, perhaps due to the fact and circumstances of their birth, score better than men in these parameters. However, these qualities are not considered as good as charisma, confidence, or characteristics that are more power centred.
Even though women have come a long way, and you see many women in leadership positions, women as a community are conditioned to think of themselves, not as leaders. Due to this deep mental conditioning that it is not good to be driven or ambitious or that only ambitious and driven individuals make good leaders, she added.
“Like this girl in black, though she thought of the name, she hesitated to say it out. That is why we need women not only in public services but in all spheres of life to break the mental barrier that women have to be leaders. Or we have to be more macho in our traits if we want to be leaders,” said the Principal Secretary.
She recalled an interesting anecdote from being a very virtuous Bihari, when she was allotted Assam cadre, she became a little soft-spoken. So, when she went to Delhi on deputation, she was soft-spoken and she saw that nobody used to pay attention to her.
“All my staff was blatantly disobeying me, so then the Bihari in me came out, and I really scolded them. And then my PA came and said, ‘ma’am aaj apne bahut acha kiya, aaj mardo bali ki.’ So, the fact that I was not a woman but had become a ‘mard’, and I think many of you officers who are from the service would testify to this that more often we have to behave like a man to be taken seriously in the public service, in any other domain,” said Varma.
She said that she often needed to lose her femininity to be taken seriously in any sphere, and that is a stereotype that she thinks women need to do away with.
“That’s why we need women in leadership positions to be role models because I remember when I was young, madam Kiran Bedi inspired me a lot to join the civil service because we have heard about her toeing away the cars of important leaders and she was called ‘Crane Bedi’,” Varma recalled.
We need to have leaders to break these mental barriers which women as a community have internalised within themselves. This is why she thinks, our society needs women leaders.
Despite being in a relatively gender-neutral service and herself being driven and ambitious, with time, Archana Varma has always suffered from a working mom’s guilt, of not having achieved a work-life balance in my career. She believes that women are conditioned to feel guilty about themselves, that’s why we need women as role models. And that’s why women who break the glass ceiling through their grit and perseverance serve as role models.
Varma cited examples of present-day Indian women like the late Kalpana Chawla, Indra Nooyi, Gita Gopinath, Mary Kom and Nirmala Sitharaman.
“I was pleasantly surprised to see the name of a bureaucrat in the fifty most popular women of India. Her name is Ira Singhal, she is an AGMUT cadre IAS officer who has never allowed her disability to come in the way of her dreams. Also, as we all know, the UN has made expanding women’s participation in public administration a development priority. Gender equality in public administration gives women not only a voice at the table but also has a positive impact on policymaking in terms of equity, inclusiveness and also diversity,” said Varma.
These are also some of the main pillars of the sustainable development goals of most of the countries today. And despite the patriarchal nature of the Indian society, she thinks it is to the credit of our past and present post-independent leaders that there has been much progressive legislation that has helped in furthering the cause of women empowerment.
“I can say with considerable confidence that in India, one-third seat reservation for women in the Panchayati raj system institution has been a landmark step for identifying the leadership potential of women to public service at local government level,” said Varma.
Many doubts have been raised, but despite the doubts, many remarkable women leaders have emerged with many positive outcomes on the issue of addressing the structural inequities of access to resources and back-end policies that encourage the advancement of all people, especially those facing disadvantages.
The 2013 Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act popularly known as the posh Act has not only widened the definition of the workplace to cover the informal sector but has also included the domestic workers.
The amount of passion and commitment which are grassroots public officials like our nurses our ANMs our ASHAs our AWCs are women police officers, constables, women civil servants have shown in combatting COVID-19 is indeed admirable. They have risked their life and safety to save millions of lives during Covid.
“I would also like to emphasise that any effort to ensure the gender parity of half the population of India would be incomplete without addressing the iniquities within the gender. I am able to assume a leadership position and discharge my official duties because some Moni didi, some Usha didi has taken care of my household,” said Archana Varma.
Unless these iniquities are addressed and the movement gives a voice to the more disadvantaged and the marginalised within us so that they too become leaders, the movement will never be considered inclusive and will be always dismissed as an urban elite phenomenon.
Additionally, women’s quest for leadership to reflect their representation can only be a win-win situation if the mindset of the other gender realises that women are equal partners, be it at home, family, work, or society. And the sex of the child is just a fact of birth and not a determination of their pre-identified identity.
The women’s movement would also need to realise that there can be different identities within society like the LGBTQ community, and there should be an inclusive space for all. Only when men, women and other marginalised communities learn to respect and treasure each other’s identities can we have an inclusive, diverse and equitable world.
The leadership of women need not be based on diminishing the role of men or any other gender in their contribution to a more inclusive and equitable society. As only when all the wheels of a cart are in can we achieve our highest potential as individuals or as a nation.
Also read: Assam: Women in Government Conclave in Cotton Uni on March 7-8