Happy Women’s Day: Atmanirbhar Bharat and Women Leadership

Atmanirbhar Bharat, the term coined by the PM of India translates to self-reliant India. It doesn’t mean self-containment i.e. isolating away from the world or being protectionist. In fact, It is a policy for making India a bigger and more important part of the global economy. This is undoubtedly a challenging task for the leaders from each and every field. Though women empowerment is a much-debated area during these COVID-19 times, there is not much focus on women’s leadership.

For ages, women are the backbone of society and have always played a positive role in shaping our society. Silently the world witnessed the advent of women leaders such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Indra Nooyi, Indira Gandhi, Theresa May, Christine Lagarde, to name a few. Women are gradually making their leadership presence felt in entrepreneurship, administration, education, engineering, health, etc. at regional, national, and global levels.  Women are now resolved to break the traditional glass ceiling that barred them from entering leadership positions even if they possessed the requisite skills and talent to occupy them. There are several women who are at the helm of various fields with proven abilities. Kiran Majumdar Shaw- CMD of Biocon, Nirmala Sitharaman, the current Finance Minister of India, and Soma Mondal – the first woman chairman of SAIL (a PSU which has a key role to play in Atmanirbhar Bharat) – have successfully shown their leadership abilities. Many statistics show that companies led by women have better financial results. Leadership by women is vital to increase the pace of societal transformation at home and in the workplace. There is no doubt, that the concept of ‘Vocal for Local’ is possible only when women, whose population is almost half of the total, are made to be part of the program and participate equally in terms of economic activities. But at the same time, there should also be parity in providing them the leadership positions.

In fact, the idea of Atmanirbhar Bharat cannot materialize and true progress cannot happen without a diversity of perspectives in leadership roles.