To 'Madam sir' with love

Manjari Jaruhar, Bihar’s first lady IPS officer, took charge of her life every time she felt invalidated, writes Saurabh Sharma

A deeply gendered society not only strengthens stereotypes but also has zero tolerance towards anything that deviates from the status quo. Yet some people don’t let the structures and strictures of society overpower their resolve and go on to chart out an inspirational journey for others to admire and follow.

One such individual is Manjari Jaruhar, Bihar’s first-ever woman Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, whose memoir Madam Sir: The Story of Bihar’s First Woman IPS Officer is published by Ebury Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. The book is remarkable for more than one reason.

It not only gives a glimpse of Manjari’s illustrious career but also outlines the gender-based discrimination women face in their professional lives, especially in the forces, for societal logic dictates that masculinity symbolises strength and courage.

Being woman

If the title — Madam Sir, a “unique coinage” the constabulary invented to address Manjari — isn’t a dead giveaway about the inherent incapability and cluelessness of the police department to welcome a lady officer, then an incident she notes in the book makes it crystal clear. On her first reporting day, besides getting “curious glances” from the staff in the Inspector General (IG’s) office, this was the IG’s response: “But I don’t know what to do with you. I cannot post you until I study Kiran Bedi’s life. I have asked for it from Delhi.”

While it must have crushed a newly-appointed officer’s spirits, Manjari probably understood that she’d have to prove her mettle repeatedly because of her gender. Obvious signs were peppered throughout her tenure: From changing her cadre to her being assigned women-centric cases to the assumption that being a woman, she’d inevitably be biased towards a female complainant in a sexual harassment case, everything had to do with her being a woman.

At this juncture, it’s one’s attitude that can make all the difference, and Manjari’s was never of the quitting kind. Her persistence, clarity of thought, and dutybound nature helped her sail through tumultuous times and sensitive cases. In fact, she, along with her team, solved the first bus dacoity case in Bihar. She not only ensured law-and-order situations within the police community were tightened — for example, acting against personnel involved in Operation Gangajal (blinding of suspects, a horrific strategy adopted by Bihar police, to reduce crime), calling out incidents of scapegoating and caste-based discriminations — but, along with her husband, fellow IPS officer, Rakesh, she also critically transformed the training programme for young IPS officers. As a result, especially women, must’ve felt way more secure, welcome, and included at the academy in the presence of a lady supervisor.

Taking charge

But these are anecdotes from her professional life. Initially, Manjari had to break several personal shackles before becoming an officer. While she comes from an influential family, Manjari recalls growing up knowing that “career, ambition, independence, (and) self-reliance were not for” girls, for they were “supposed to study well, be groomed well and marry well.” And it didn’t help either that Manjari wasn’t a rebellious child. She was deeply assimilated into the heteropatriarchal setup she was raised in. Here’s a case in point: Manjari had secured admission into Lady Irwin College in New Delhi to study domestic science. But her ticket was cancelled last moment, as it felt like bidai, a farewell to her father, who wasn’t ready for it. She writes that she sat “in silence amid a sea of open suitcases and new clothes in my room, while a storm of disappointment raged within me. But I did not say a word in protest. No angry scenes, no rebellion, no tantrums.” She was in fact someone who had no “courage to hail a rickshaw” to get home on her own. Then how did this young woman from Bihar make up her mind to enrol in a coaching institute in Delhi to prepare for the UPSC examination? I don’t want to ruin her story for you. All I can note is that when she felt invalidated, she took charge of her life.

The distinctness of this memoir is that not only does it checkbox criteria such as authenticity, objectivity, clarity, and sheer storytelling but it also leaves you aching for that young woman who could’ve slipped into depression and may have never recovered. No one, at least in my view, can measure the depth of that well of loneliness one is pushed into when one is faced with. But at that precise moment, Manjari made a life-altering decision. It helped that Manjari found a loving and caring husband in Rakesh. He not only shouldered childcare responsibilities but also nurtured a relationship in which they could feel secure to conduct their everyday personal and professional engagements.

In the book, Manjari writes that “when to order ‘action’ and when to exercise ‘restraint’ is a critical judgement call,” a mark of a great leader. But this decision-making is also crucial in storytelling. The evidence is Madam Sir’s last chapter. It’s literary genius to mask and delay the mention of a shadow-like figure so effectively that their mention towards the end breaks the reader into tears. An extremely readable book, a page-turner and also a very sensitively told personal narrative, Madam Sir will be treasured by generations to come.