India’s progressive lexicon of a ‘women-led development model’, aims to leverage leadership spaces for women across sectors. However, as the Leader’s Summit of the G20 inches closer, the dialogue on the glaring gender disparity in policing has failed to garner adequate attention. Despite global calls to increase the representation of women in policing, the progress remains regrettably slow. According to data released by the Bureau of Police Research & Development, (BPRD), women constitute about 10.49 percent of India’s police force, falling much behind their global counterparts. The United Kingdom has over 34.9 percent women in terms of its overall workforce, while the United States (US) has 12.6 percent female law enforcement officers. There were 217,026 women in India’s police personnel as of 1 January  2021, which was a meagre 0.71 percent increase since 2019.

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