 First Woman Police Officer of IndiaJuly 1972
 Everybody knows Kiran Bedi in India. She was a fellow trainee officer in the Academy in 1972 andChandra Kanta Gariyali, IAS we did our foundation course together . That year three girls had passed the Indian Police Service, Kiran, another girl and myself. I had also made it to the IAS and IPS was only a third choice for me, so the question of my joining IPS did not arise. The other candidate was not very keen and settled down for the Central Services. Kiran had opted only for IPS and was determined to join only
IPS.
There was furore in the entire beaurocracy and the Cabinet Secretariat in New Delhi was shaking. How could they have a woman in the police service? Kiran expected stiff opposition. One or two women who had passed the exam in the past had been manipulated to accept the central services. Authorities were confident to do the same thing this time round. Technically, discrimination on the basis of sex is not allowed by the constitution of India, hence women had to be allowed to take up the IPS exam, but they were always successfully prevailed upon not to join. But this time it was different.
In the midst of the heated arguments on the issue, in the ladies block of the Academy, Kiran launched her ‘satyagraha’. We all decided to back her. It was now or never. We would never have a better woman candidate than Kiran to bet on. If she did not get in now no woman could ever get in future. Doors for women had to be opened.
Kiran was stronger than all the men in the Academy. She was in the best of health. She had won the Asian Lawn Tennis Championship (the only Indian women to do it so far). She ran Marathan races. She was an excellent rock climber and mountaineer. She was serious, reserved and purposeful and did not indulge in idle gossip. She did not wear make-up and yet looked beautiful and was in love with her long-standing tennis partner
‘Brji’.
I got to understand her better when both of us went together on a month long rock climbing course to Uttar Kashi, at the Himalayan Institute of Mountaineering. There we often laid our sleeping bags side by side under the stars and spoke to each other of our dreams, our aspirations and our loved ones.
Authorities tried very hard to dissuade her from joining the police. They offered her the choicest central services and the choicest places of posting but Kiran did not relent. They made such excuses like training in the police academy would be very stressful due to horse riding and heavy exercises (wasn’t she already coming first in riding and beating the men in cross country races). It was said that there was no ladies hostel in the police academy in Mount Abu (were not Sudha, Kiran and me already staying in the men’s hostel, since there was no place in the ladies block of the Academy). We did not understand what all the fuss was about.
However each one of these objections were duly answered. When we met Mrs. Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, we briefed her about the matter. Credit must go to the Director of the Academy Mr. Sathe, ICS, who tried to put forward the case at every forum and argued for her at the Cabinet Secretariat. In spite of everything negative recommendations were made which were thankfully vetoed by Mrs. Gandhi and thus India got its first woman police officer. There was jubiliation in the Academy and much rejoicing and partying took place before the police officers left for Mount Abu.
However, for Kiran it was not the end of the problem but the beginning of a struggle. She was posted in the Union territories from Goa to New Delhi but never in Punjab, where her husband Brij has his business and had to always live away from her husband. This could have been avoided. To me it always appeared that everyone tried to make it as hard for her as possible, to test her endurance. Sacrifice of her personal life, for the call of duty and her dedication to the job; and the laurels and awards which followed, are well known to all.
She has inspired any amount of books and a spate of movies and TV serials. The sacrifice of family life and personal freedom; which she made has paid rich dividends in creating a niche in the Indian Police Service for women. Kiran joined IPS in 1972 and soon after that Tamilnadu got its first woman police officer in Latika Saran in 1973 and the process continues. Indian Police women have proved their mettle in the last twenty-six years of their existence and India is proud of them. It is more than ten years when I saw her last, but her image which is imprinted on my mind, is as I saw her in Mussoorie, walking down the Library Point eating a corn on the cob and deeply thinking perhaps of ‘Brij’.
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