In this discussion, women leaders share their journeys of resilience, mentorship, empowerment, and challenges, advancing diversity and leadership roles.
Bharathi Baskar: When I did my schooling, my drill teacher, Sara, taught us a very important lesson as she trained us for a powerful formation.
In that formation, five girls would stand as a base, and on their shoulders, four more would rise. Above them, three, then two, and finally, one girl would stand at the very top, proudly holding and waving the national flag. The entire crowd’s attention would be fixed on this girl, cheering her.
The teacher would tell us, ‘Those of you standing below will not receive applause. But if you feel resentful for not being clapped for and move aside to see the girl on top, she will fall. Your responsibility is simply to hold your position firmly, supporting the girls beside you. As long as you do your job well, the girl on top can maintain her position.’
This is the lesson. Today, if women have achieved significant progress, it’s because of those who stood and supported us, without expecting appreciation or applause. This holds true for both women and men. We still have a long journey ahead. It’s important for us to reflect on whose shoulders we have risen to this level. Oscar Wilde said, ‘There is really no such thing as a self-made man. We are all made up of a thousand others.’
Malini Shankar: I entered the services in the mid-1980s, a time when there weren’t many women professionals in various fields, not just administration. I’d like to echo what Bharathi Baskar said about people standing on others’ shoulders, which is so true. The 1970s presented significant challenges for women entering the service. They faced major issues, not only in the office with peers and superiors accepting them, but also, they struggled to find life partners. It was a significant issue because of the perception: who would marry an IAS officer and how would you navigate that relationship?
Sorry, I Can’t Salute You!
So, the women who served as role models in the 1970s paved the way for those of us who entered in the 1980s, providing a level of comfort. In fact, early in my service, there was an incident where the husband was a Superintendent of Police (SP) and the wife was a Collector. He apparently told her, ‘I know you’re the Collector and I have to salute you, but I don’t salute women.’ If a husband holds such a view, think about others!
Another instance I recall is when my posting as Water Resources Secretary was being considered. This came after a significant scam, something like 40,000 crore rupees, in the state. For 40 years, that secretary position had been held by engineers. The government’s typical approach to such scams was to assign an IAS officer to manage it until they found another engineer to take over. I’m sure that’s a common practice. So, when they were considering candidates, they decided they needed an IAS officer.
Many IAS officers, including men, wanted that post to revert to the IAS, but they were hesitant to take on a role with a tainted past. Anyway, the first time they approached me, I said I wasn’t interested. The second time, I actually took leave to avoid it. But the third time they insisted, I felt I had to accept. I asked why they were considering me, and they said nobody else knew about water issues.
Woman? So What?
However, when the file went to the Chief Minister, a very erudite and scholarly person, he apparently told the Chief Secretary, ‘But she’s a woman (Mahila).’ This is where support makes a huge difference. The Chief Secretary responded, ‘So what? It’s my responsibility to get the work done.’ It’s people like that who help us. Mentoring isn’t limited to men or women. It comes from anyone. When you receive support, your performance improves significantly.
We must acknowledge the progress we’ve made in terms of empowerment and creating an encouraging environment. One of the major challenges we faced in the 1980s was the lack of toilets for women. We take it for granted today, but imagine the struggles involved in advocating for that. When I took up that cause as Secretary of Water Supply and Sanitation, my first senior posting in the secretariat, and told my colleagues we needed clean toilets, they responded, ‘But we have them.’ They were only referring to the toilets attached to the officers’ rooms, not those for the staff or visitors. Maharashtra, being a developed state, received many women visitors from villages who had no place to relieve themselves. Men also faced issues, but they often found their own solutions. Women had significant problems, and this highlights a crucial point: are you considering the needs of both men and women, or just your own?
One last thing: we often discuss women in leadership positions and what constitutes leadership. Management theories often categorise leadership styles, but in practice, I believe true leadership is the extent to which you empower the people who work with you, as a team or under you, to reach their full potential, and you take pride in their achievements. Success isn’t solely about position.
Bharathi Baskar: Just two quick thoughts. Firstly, in the early days—I’m not sure exactly when it started—there was a condition for women entering the IFS, and I believe even the IAS initially, that they should not be married. This was a condition until the 70s for the IFS, that a woman IFS officer should be unmarried. Then, Justice Krishna Iyer delivered a historic judgment questioning why this restriction existed for women but not for men in the IFS. His ruling changed that. Many such discriminatory practices existed.
Even today, many women, especially those in the IT sector working in Chennai, who travel by bus to their hometowns on weekends, face challenges. A man travelling will typically buy a biryani packet and a bottle of good drinking water and travel. A woman, however, will often stop drinking water from three o’clock in the afternoon. It’s because they won’t have safe or hygienic facilities to relieve themselves during the journey.
Lastly, I want to mention Sheryl Sandberg, who was the COO of Facebook until very recently. When she became a director at Facebook, it was a significant moment for her. She went for her first board meeting. One floor in the building was dedicated to directors, and board meetings were held there. She wanted to use the restroom. She went and found there were no women’s restrooms on that floor. She asked the admin person why, and he couldn’t answer, simply stating that there had been no women directors until then, so they hadn’t considered it. She insisted that a women’s restroom be available by the next board meeting. This illustrates why it’s crucial to have more women in leadership positions as they can consider the needs of women as a community and make decisions accordingly.
Innocent Divya: I’m a truly fortunate person because the glass ceiling that existed for women in bureaucracy had already been broken by people like Madam Malini. For us, it was easier. Even dreaming of a service like the IAS was much more accessible. After school, when I pursued college education, I already planned to take the civil services exam. However, even entering the civil services was marked by pressure from parents. Because typically, after finishing college, you’re expected to settle down in life within a year or two. But I really wanted to do something meaningful with my life, not just get married and be content with that. So, that pressure was there. Within a year of graduating, I had to secure a position in the government.
So I studied like mad. That pressure really got to me. I studied relentlessly. I took all the exams – all the state government exams, all the UPSC exams, everything – in just one year because I didn’t want to get married without a job, without being financially independent. That, I think, is a positive kind of pressure for women. That’s why I believe many women succeed. You’d be surprised by the numbers. When the TNPSC Group One service officers list came out last time, out of 30 people recruited, 22 were women. While there’s a one-third reservation for women, even beyond that, so many women are selected on merit in competitive exams. And just last month, we met with Indian Foreign Service officers who were here for an engagement with the “Naan Mudalvan” initiative. Out of seven IFS officers, four were women.
In A Fortunate Space
We are currently in a very fortunate space where everyone is looking for diversity. In my previous role as MD of the Skill Development Corporation, I met with different industrialists daily and every single person was looking for diversity hiring. They want women. Right now, we are doing diversity hiring for Infosys, Wipro, IBM, to name a few. All of them are specifically seeking women candidates. That’s a significant achievement for our generation. Kudos to all of us. We’ve been able to prove ourselves in any field, even in traditionally male-dominated areas like manufacturing, where you typically find diploma and mechanical engineering graduates, mostly men. Now, every company is looking for women engineers and women diploma engineers. This, I believe, is a massive change we’ve brought about in around 20 years.
As women, we should be proud of what we’ve achieved. When I started my journey, I didn’t have anything that distinguished me from the other 10 people in our batch. And all my seniors, whoever I reported to, never treated me differently. I think I was really fortunate in that, or at least I didn’t perceive any discrimination. For me, the vision ahead kept driving me. Maybe I was oblivious, I don’t know, but I can only speak to my own experience. No posting was denied to me simply because I was a woman. So, I think as a society, we’ve moved forward. We’ve achieved so much in the last 20 years, more than perhaps in the previous 100. It’s been a truly golden period for women like us in both corporate and government sectors, a very enabling environment.
Need for Care Ecosystem
However, one thing still remains: at home, women often carry the same responsibilities that existed 50 or 60 years ago. You’re still primarily responsible for the children and the elderly at home. So, what is the care ecosystem doing? I think that’s where this generation needs to focus – how to create a security net around women.
When I joined the services, I had already given birth to my daughter; she was just three months old. Leaving her with someone was the biggest pressure I faced. Every day, leaving my three-month-old at home and traveling from Chennai to Kanchipuram, where I was posted for training, and then returning in the evening, constantly made me worry about her. In those days, we didn’t have cell phones either. Only a privileged few did. We had to call from a landline, from a public call office, to check on the baby. It was a very stressful period for me, with a three-month-old child and frequent transfers. Every six months, there would be a transfer. I believe that care ecosystem is what women now need to work towards.
Mentorship also needs to address these domains, helping create that supportive ecosystem for women. My husband was abroad, so I had to manage all household responsibilities on my own, without it affecting my official work, which was also very demanding. Initially, when you join, you’re expected to perform, achieve targets, and prove yourself. That pressure is always there because women often strive for perfection in everything we do – at home and in the workplace. That adds to the stress.
As a generation, we’ve accomplished a lot, but there’s still more to do. Regarding toilets, I’ve also faced similar struggles during long inspection visits. You can’t just stop anywhere, so you end up not drinking water for the entire duration. Sometimes I’ve gone for eight hours without drinking, just sipping tea or coffee to keep my mouth from getting dry.
Dealing with Office Politics
Bharathi Baskar: Even in a normal office environment, when something happens, when someone is working against you, we often say there’s a lot of office politics. That word has become synonymous with someone not aligning with your interests or not supporting you. Both of you have likely dealt with this so-called politics daily as part of your work. What gave you the courage and determination to navigate such challenges in your professional lives?
Innocent Divya: We have to live with this. One thing that affects women very badly is character assassination. That’s a common tactic used against us. It’s a tool readily available to anyone – just the wagging tongue. You can say anything, and it immediately triggers a reaction, it hits you very hard. This method is used systematically to put you down, to demotivate you. When you understand the intention behind it, when you realise it’s meant to undermine you and there’s no truth to it, when you recognise the mechanism at play, I believe we can overcome it.
Once someone starts spreading gossip about you, you’re often the first to believe it. Everyone else knows your character; they wouldn’t believe it, but you take it to heart and start doubting yourself. You can see the design behind it and clearly understand that it’s not about you personally, but an attack on your work. They don’t want you to succeed.
I’ve seen hundreds of instances like this, but what life and my career have taught me is to focus on why you are there. If you are in a position, it’s by divine design. Women are often empowered to see a larger design, a pattern within the position we hold. When people start attacking you, you tend to withdraw into a shell. That’s when you focus on the microscopic, smaller things, and they gain undue importance.
You often can’t respond. As a government servant, you’re expected to maintain silence. We don’t have the privilege of going to the media to clarify anything. So, they can write whatever they want, but you always have to hold your head high, and that’s the most challenging aspect. But over my 23 years of experience, I’ve learned that such attacks aren’t personal; they’re meant to undermine the work I’m doing. To that extent, I’ve matured.
Malini Shankar: The key lesson from all this is: don’t believe social media entirely; it can be deceptive. My father was a scientist and had high expectations for my scientific career. So, when I chose administration, he was supportive but didn’t fully understand my decision. One thing I observed in his life was the significant amount of politics even within the scientific field. So, I reasoned that if I had to face politics somewhere, I’d rather do it directly in a field where it’s inherent. To this day, my friends and my husband wonder how I survived in government. When someone asked me after retirement about my biggest achievement, my spontaneous answer was simply surviving in government.
On dealing with politics, one crucial aspect is to simply block it out. You have a job to do. During the first year of our career, there was resistance to having a female Assistant Collector. I visited a village during one of those tours. In those days, tours weren’t quick car trips; you had to stay in the evening and talk with the villagers. I asked them if they would have preferred a male officer. They asked why.
The crux of my point was that they could call a male officer at three in the morning with a grievance, knock on his door, or even invite him for a drink – none of which they could do with me. The reply I received from people in Wardha district, which was highly insightful for me in the late 80s, was, ‘We don’t understand why you’re saying these things. We believe that you draw your power from the chair you occupy. That power is given to you by the Constitution of India, and we expect you to deliver what that chair can deliver. That’s it.’ After that, I faced no problems. My boss didn’t necessarily need to like me, nor did my subordinates, but the people accepted me.
You must deal with politics through fairness. If the public you serve and the office you work in perceive you as fair, most issues resolve themselves, provided you avoid unnecessarily stepping on toes. In fact, politicians including very senior leaders, have told me that administrators shouldn’t get involved in politics, and politicians shouldn’t interfere in administration. That’s how the system functions smoothly. Fairness is very important. If you have a reputation for being fair, the political manoeuvring tends to cancel itself out.
The second crucial aspect is sensitivity – not just to the demands of your superiors, but to the difficulties faced by your staff. If someone has a genuine problem causing them to be late, you must address it reasonably within government rules. I’ve done this by acknowledging good work, even if I couldn’t offer an increment or promotion, by sending them for training in Shimla with their spouse and an extra day, simply marking their attendance. Being sensitive to their requirements and aspirations is number two.
And the third thing I’ve learned over three or four decades of work is that empathy doesn’t necessarily come at the beginning. I was probably harsh in my early years, but over time, you develop that empathy. If it’s genuine, it sends a message, and people respect you, and all the politics tends to dissolve.
I’d like to share two statistics. India has the largest proportion of women in its foreign service globally, and it has consistently been this way, interestingly. The second field where women are very prominently present is that India has the largest proportion of women pilots. Now it’s around 13-14% and no other country tops that. So, we are making our mark; we just need to keep encouraging.
Bharathi Baskar: Are women in your field actively seeking help, or not really?
Innocent Divya: Women indeed are asking for support. Women, within society, often understand a woman’s needs more deeply. So, the women in the inner family – the mother, mother-in-law, or sister-in-law matter a lot. For me, my sister-in-law was there to take care for my children.
I’ve also been mentored by many men. My grandfather was my first mentor. One day, I returned from an NSS camp visit to an old age home and orphanage nearby in tears. I asked him why there were so many people in the old age home and so many orphaned children with no one to help them. My grandfather said, ‘There’s no point in crying. If you want to help them, you need to reach a position where you can help them. Simply shedding tears is not enough.’
That was a very powerful message of mentorship that I internalised. I decided I should strive for a position of influence where I could do something to wipe away those tears. We all need to engage with society, enter the world, and use our abilities. We possess so much empathy and sensitivity that can aid and heal society. We all need to play that role while also looking back at our households. Malini Shankar: Women have come to me for help saying they face harassment. The first question I would ask them is, “Is it work related harassment from the boss or sexual harassment.” According to the reply, I would approach it. Mentorship, to me, takes different forms.
