Yahoo Movies Frontline HERoes: How BSF’s Mahila Praharis are making us proud
It took 44 years for India’s elite Border Security Force (BSF) formed in 1965 to recruit a Mahila Prahari (woman soldier) but there has been no looking back since. In 2009 when the first batch of BSF women recruits joined the country’s first line of defence, there was skepticism on whether these brave women would be able to take what is considered a very tough posting.
But the BSF Mahila praharis have proven all their detractors wrong. In the early years, only women from West Bengal and Punjab were recruited, since they would serve in those areas. Initially these women soldiers were deployed at the fencing gates on our borders. There are approximately 300 fencing gates along the 553 km long Punjab border (IB) with Pakistan.
These gates facilitate farmers and their women folk to go across for cultivation on their farms and lands, which existed before the fencing was put up. The newly passed out Mahila praharis were deployed on Border Out Posts (BOPs) for checking and frisking of women folk at the gates which earlier couldn’t be done by their male counterparts for the obvious reasons. Before this, only a few women made the crossing, frisked by the wives of local sarpanches (village chiefs). The women folk in the local population were more than pleased to see the Mahila praharis join the force.
Inspiring journey
Today, BSF Women brigade comprise members from other states as well - Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. These inspiring women soldiers not only keep an eye on male and female farmers who plough fields at the IB, they also do patrolling either on foot or on camels and they even lead the Beating the Retreat ceremony at the Wagah Border in Amritsar. They don’t wear the distinctive fan-shaped headdresses that their male counterparts do for the ceremony, but in all other respects, their ceremonial garb is identical.
Over the years, these Mahila praharis have risen the ranks to engage in internal security duties and counter insurgency roles being performed by the BSF. They are also trained in combat so they have the skills to protect the country when required. In 2012, two women BSF constables shot a Pakistani intruder dead on the India Pakistan border near an observation post at Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district of Punjab.
Three years ago, the stellar performance by the 113-member Seema Bhavani motorcycling squad of the BSF at the Republic Day Parade in New Delhi was lauded as being 'historic', 'breaking stereotypes' and a beacon of 'women empowerment'.
In 2016, Bikaner girl Tanu Shree Pareek created history by becoming the first woman combat officer in the BSF’s 51-year existence. It was only three years prior, in 2013, that the border sentinel allowed women to apply for the rank of officers for the first time.
Breaking the glass ceiling
Like all women in a male bastion, these Mahila praharis face their challenges -some posts do not have separate barrack arrangements or separate toilets for women, making their deployment difficult in forward posts.
Unlike the other armed forces who have peacetime postings, there is no war or peacetime for the BSF. They have a 24x7x365 day job on the frontlines that are prone to infiltration.
But the good news is that BSF is not skewed against women. As an organisation, it is egalitarian in its approach where personnel in each of their respective ranks - from constables to officers, men or women - have the same benefits and salaries.
