Page 27 - A Gender-Sensitive Indian Foreign Policy- Why? and How?

Indian Council
of World Affairs

The Women, Peace and Security agenda has really taken off, again
in words, if not always in deeds.

security and stability with the security of women in the country. The
3
2015 global study on UN Security Council Resolution 1325, led by Radhika
Coomaraswamy, cited research, which has shown that:

When controlling for other variables, peace processes that
included women as witnesses, signatories, mediators, and/or
negotiators demonstrated a 20 per cent increase in the probability
of a peace agreement lasting at least two years. This percentage
increases over time, with a 35 per cent increase in the probability
of a peace agreement lasting 15 years. 4

So again, it makes sense for Member States, committed to international
peace and security, to take its gender dimension seriously.

At the same time, however, there may be a disconnect between what has
been identified as national interest and feminist policies. We see this in the
case of both Sweden and France, wherein their arms exports were at odds
with their feminist foreign policy and feminist international assistance
policy respectively. There is a broader point here of militarization that does
not square with the pacifist strands of feminism. But there’s also the fact
that they are selling arms to countries involved in deadly conflicts that have
wreaked havoc on civilian lives, and have gendered implications. So, the
question is how do we square these two competing sets of interests? This
relates to issues raised by Dr. Rajagpolan as well.

Against this backdrop, I will now move on to discuss WPS and the Security
Council, more specifically. These remarks draw on research that I conducted
for a paper presented at an ICWA webinar in October 2020, part of which
was to study the statements that India has made at the Security Council at
WPS-related open meetings over the last twenty years. There have been
5
some references to WPS already. In case, this is an unfamiliar acronym, let
me add that the WPS agenda dates back to the passage of Security Council
Resolution 1325 in October 2000. This resolution recognized and encouraged
women’s participation in peacemaking and conflict prevention, and called
for protection of women from conflict-related sexual violence. As is probably
apparent from the earlier presentations, the Women, Peace and Security

3 Hudson, Valerie M.,Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, and Chad F. Emmett (2014) Sex and World Peace, New
York: Columbia University Press.
4 Coomaraswamy, Radhika, et al. (2015) Preventing Conflict, Transforming Justice, Securing the Peace: A Global
Study on the Implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. New York: UN Women, Online,
at http://wps.unwomen.org/pdf/en/GlobalStudy_EN_Web.pdf, pp. 41-42.
5 An extended version of these remarks is forthcoming in an edited volume to be published by the Indian Council 27
of World Affairs.

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