Unpacking the gendered nature of police work in India

Purpose The paper aims to examine the gendered underpinnings of policework in India. In doing so, it contributes to discourses on gender, work and policing, by focusing on a particular facet of gender and policing in India, i.e. the various forms of work that women in policework undertake. Design/methodology/approach This paper brings together data drawn from an ethnographic study of two police stations in India and feminist literature on women’s work. The two police stations were located in states of Delhi and Kerala (one in each state), and the ethnography covered a span of 11 months (February to July 2019 in Kerala and July 2019 to January 2020 in Delhi). Findings We find that women’s work in the police stations is conditioned by gendered norms and gendered social relations that also significantly condition the unpaid work that they do, and these different forms of work overdetermine each other. In this context, increasing representation of women within the police force has to be accompanied by a re-imagination of the police as a civic service which is gender-neutral (but not gender-blind) as well as a recognition of women’s unpaid work. Originality/value This paper offers a unique lens through which everyday policing activities can be holistically understood. By foregrounding the interplay of gender relations and work relations in policework, the paper sheds light on facets of policing which have hitherto been unexplored by literature on policing and gender, especially in the Indian context.