Page 23 - A Gender-Sensitive Indian Foreign Policy- Why? and How?

Indian Council
of World Affairs

she perhaps thought as essential in relations with a bitter, acrimonious and
defeated neighbour.

I have never been convinced that she handled the invasion of Afghanistan by
Russia really well. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan reached out to her on numerous
occasions and then Foreign Secretary, J.N. Dixit’s memoirs, mentions those
difficult conversations. She allowed the Russians to get away with the brutal
invasion of the Afghan people without offering any resistance. In fact, one
could say that some of the most muscular policies we practiced or perhaps
adopted in foreign policy were when a woman PM was in power. Unlike
her own father, who was milder and in hindsight accused of naivety and
hopeless idealism, Indira Gandhi was both an idealist and a realist. One could
also discuss her support to the LTTE in Sri Lanka in that context – a mixture
of idealism and hard realism.

Then, to the interlude period between Indira Gandhi and the present -
marked by ambiguity, and the constant search for a middle path instead of
balancing or band-wagoning like the realists would suggest. We had already
lost the notional patron with the end of the Cold War, and then we entered
into a new phase of conflict with Pakistan since the 1990s. The focus on ‘Look
East Policy’ under PM Rao, to develop our cultural and civilizational links
with South East Asia, and much later, also the indifference to the ‘Pivot to
Asia’, launched by US President Obama are other examples of non-alignment
with big powers and focussing on good relations with neighbours. India was
to be the linchpin in Pivot to Asia, especially but it was remarkable how we
kept away from US pressure and presence in the region.

I will quote Amb. Rao here who stated at that point of time (Pivot to Asia)
as India’s Ambassador to the US that the “historical links to the Asia Pacific
were more than geo-politic or geo-economic, this was a geo-civilizational
paradigm, a creative space with revolving doors where civilizations coalesced
and did not clash. We see that as a rough guide to our future, so in some
sense that continues, reflects in some of the things that we have achieved and
think about”.
In the current Modi era, despite all the hype of uniqueness, invocation of
civilisational narratives and criticism of Nehruvian policies, non-alignment
in some sense is still alive. We have been very careful, to balance big powers
like US, China, Russia and of course we are watching a lot of interesting
developments around ‘the Quad’. Our relationship with other big powers

The ‘vaccine diplomacy’ is also an example of our gendered
approach to foreign policy, reaching out to the poorer and small
nations of the world, Bhutan, Guyana, Jamaica. 23

A GENDER-SENSITIVE INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY Why? and How?