Dehradun: When Shanan Dhaka, 23, was commissioned as an Army officer at the Indian Military Academy’s passing out parade, she added her name to a family’s long service record that began with her grandfather, who retired as a subedar, continued with her father, who retired as a naib subedar, and runs alongside her sister, who serves as a nursing officer in the Army Medical Corps.
Dhaka, a resident of Haryana, was among the first batch of women cadets to enter the National Defence Academy (NDA) in 2022 after the Supreme Court opened the doors of the premier tri-service academy to women. She secured the top position among women aspirants and an overall 10th rank in the NDA entrance examination, giving up a parallel UPSC preparation plan to pursue what she described as a life she had seen from close quarters since childhood.
On Saturday, she became part of history again as one of the first women officers commissioned from IMA after completing the full NDA-IMA training pipeline. The parade marked a milestone for the Army and for the academy, which had trained generations of gentlemen cadets since 1932 but had never before seen women cadets from NDA march out from its portals as commissioned officers.
After getting commissioned, Dhaka said the moment brought both pride and responsibility. “It is a deep sense of pride and responsibility at the same time,” she said, adding that her decision to join the Army had never felt like an ordinary career option because of the environment in which she grew up.
“Having a military background in the family, it was never a career choice for me, rather a way of life that I had witnessed since childhood, in which I simply had to find a way in. When the opportunity came following the Supreme Court ruling in 2021, I gave it my all,” Dhaka said.
Growing up in cantonments across the country, Dhaka said she had absorbed the rhythms of service, discipline and sacrifice long before she wore the uniform herself. Her father’s and grandfather’s service, and her sister’s role in Army Medical Corps, gave her a living connection with the institution, but she said the journey through NDA and IMA had demanded that she prove herself on the same standards as every other cadet.
“The training was completely gender-neutral. At NDA and later at IMA, we were treated exactly like other officer cadets. The standards were the same, and we were never made to feel different. It was a great honour to be part of the first batch of women cadets passing out from IMA,” she said.
The commissioning also closed a historic loop that began when women were first allowed to sit for the NDA entrance after judicial intervention in 2021. The first batch of women cadets joined NDA in 2022, graduated from the academy in 2025 and then moved to service-specific pre-commission training, with those allotted to the Army completing the final phase at IMA before being commissioned.
