Correspondingly, the state was directed to create supportive infrastructure for breastfeeding and infant care, both in public areas and at workplaces.

A similar direction was issued shortly before in January 2025, by a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Rajeeb Kalita v. Union of India. The Court ordered all the high courts to constitute a committee to, among other things, provide rooms — interconnected with the women’s washroom — with feeding stations and changing tables in all court complexes to cater to nursing mothers and mothers with infants.

Both these judicial pronouncements are instrumental in de-stigmatising and de-sexualising breastfeeding in public. They rightly recognise that public infrastructure should be gender-sensitive and facilitate childcare, because that is a critical enabler for mothers to continue participating in public life. By mandating gender-sensitive infrastructure, the apex court attempts to address barriers that mothers face in navigating public spaces and workplaces with their children.

However, these orders inadvertently perpetuate the long-standing gendered stereotype that infant care and nutrition is exclusively a mother’s responsibility. This continues the “double burden” on women: Not only do women engage in formal employment and public participation, but they also undertake a disproportionate amount of unpaid, private caregiving. Extending this to the current situation, while women with children would be able to access public spaces and workplaces without entry barriers and for a sustained period, there would be no respite for them in terms of their childcare responsibilities. They are still the ones expected to undertake all care for the child in public. Thus, the overall structure of the gendered division of labour would not be challenged, with women continuing to remain the primary caregivers for children.

The statistics capture this stark imbalance. As of 2024, on average, Indian men spend 75 minutes on unpaid caregiving, whereas Indian women spend 137 minutes. Unless the current legal and policy frameworks explicitly address this unequal division, these numbers are unlikely to change in a substantial manner.

To truly achieve gender equality, it is imperative to bring fathers into the picture, legally and as a matter of fact. Among heterosexual couples, fathers must equally be responsible for infant-care and childcare. Research has shown that paternal involvement in childcare has led to multiple positive outcomes both for children and mothers. Fathers, by spending time on infant-care and young children, improve children’s psychological wellbeing and cognitive development. Paternal involvement also enables women to sustain their employment trajectories, since their caregiving load would be reduced.

Thus, to promote paternal caregiving, our legal regime must have a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of infant care. Biologically gendered processes like breastfeeding must be treated differently from gender-agnostic caregiving tasks such as bottle-feeding, changing diapers, and putting infants to sleep. These tasks can, and must, be carried out by fathers, and the law should enable this. The Supreme Court’s rationale that public infrastructure is essential to gender equality, quality childcare, and child nutrition would only be buttressed by including fathers within the infant-care framework.

Accordingly, the policy relating to gendered public infrastructure must change. International studies have demonstrated the direct effect of policies relating to paternity leave and the gendered division of labour in public institutions and workplaces on increasing men’s participation in caring for their children. Reshaping public infrastructure would likely result in similar outcomes. Creating gender-neutral infrastructure sends a strong signal from the state that men are capable of, and ought to be equally responsible for, feeding infants, changing their diapers, pacifying them, etc.

Therefore, the childcare rooms, feeding, and changing stations must be delinked from women’s washrooms. They must be reimagined as gender-neutral spaces set up independently, which can be accessed by all parents. This is not just crucial for gender equality within heterosexual couples, but also for the inclusion of single fathers and queer parents. Ultimately, enabling fathers to participate in childcare is the only sustainable way to dismantle the entrenched gender divide in caregiving. Legal and policy reforms must reflect this reality — only then can we move toward a truly gender-equal model of infant-care and childcare.

Jwalika Balaji is with the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, Delhi. The views expressed are personal