Page 38 - A Gender-Sensitive Indian Foreign Policy- Why? and How?

Indian Council
of World Affairs

been reserved as male domains, where women or soft security issues had
limited or no space.

It has only been in the past few decades that India’s foreign policy, apart
from countering adversaries, has begun moving towards non-traditional
security issues. But the persistent marginalization of women—in India’s
security domain and otherwise—has continued to make India’s approach
deeply gendered, where power, aggression and domination take priority over
the goals of empowering women and bringing about long-term peace.

Women in fact, continue to be under-represented in positions of decision-
making within India’s diplomatic mechanisms. For example, up till today,
among thirty-three appointees for the position of India’s Foreign Secretary,
only three have been women. Similarly, as of 3rd March 2020, India had a
total of 125 Embassies and High Commissions abroad but only 23 of them
were female headed. Besides, the strength of the IFS cadre stood at 815 with
176 women officers as of 16th October 2020.

In terms of policy-making, gender-mainstreaming efforts in India’s foreign
policy have largely occurred under the development assistance paradigm,
where specific programs are directed towards making women the drivers
of inclusive growth. While some might argue that this approach is a step in
the right direction for empowering women, the truth is that it does so only
partially, since women are relegated certain roles rather than attaining equal
rights, and have little choice.
In light of these challenges, it is vital that India pursues reforms not only at
the organizational level but also in terms of policy making in order achieve
more comprehensive and inclusive outcomes. And the best way to do this is
by the adoption of a FFP framework.

The FFP approach provides a concrete framework for India to move towards
equality, common well-being, and peace. FFP builds on three central
principles of feminist perspectives on diplomacy and security, which include
broadening the understanding of security, decoding internal power relations,
and acknowledging women’s political agency.

In this sense, FFP is an effort to move beyond the
traditional notions of war, peace, and development
assistance, which is prevalent in India to incorporate
other arenas of foreign policy, including economics,
finance, health, and the environment. By doing so, the
framework looks at security in a more holistic way and
incorporates the effects of its policies on women and
marginalized groups.
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