Page 40 - A Gender-Sensitive Indian Foreign Policy- Why? and How?

Indian Council
of World Affairs

ready to move towards FFP — it deployed the first all-female police force unit
to Liberia in 2007; actively participated in UNSC debates on women, peace,
and security; and strongly advocated for women’s inclusion in peacemaking
and peacekeeping. This demonstrates that despite the prevailing gender
gaps within in domestic context, India has aligned, at least in some ways if
not completely, with the global normative framework on the WPS agenda,
which has been designed to address-gendered dimension of peace and
security issues.

India can move towards a FFP by first actively appointing women at various
policy levels and involving them directly in the conduct of its foreign
relations. Second, India can make a stronger commitment to include women
at the decision-making tables, either through quota system or just by
ensuring that there is an equal representation of men and women. Third,
India can collaborate with various international, regional, and national
civil society organizations to ensure the proper implementation of the
FFP framework.

However, with India’s historical trajectory being full of stories regarding
women’s subjugation, adoption of a FFP framework seems rather too
optimistic. Patriarchal values are so deeply ingrained within the Indian
society that India has barely been able to bring about a change in the system
of inequity at home. And thus, how can one expect India to embrace such
strong feminist values in its global interactions? But the truth is, a FFP
approach may not only assist India in fostering innovative ways of thinking,
but allow it to build upon its traditional view of security, facilitate diverse
representation, and build long-term relations.

Amb. Nirupama Rao Thank you Akanksha. And Akanksha was the millennial voice on our panel.
(Chair and Moderator) So we need to pay careful attention to all that she said, the value of inclusion,
putting human security at the heart of our entire policy making, looking
at security in a more holistic way. She was perhaps a little guarded in her
conclusion about whether India can have a feminist foreign policy. But there
is certainly hope and listening to other speakers on our panel today, you
realize as Jawaharlal Nehru said so long ago, India’s soul is also feminine.
As a country, if our soul is feminine, then I think that this has its impact in
policy making. Even if perhaps we do not articulate it always in that form,
but certainly the underlying precepts and the concepts are there, and provide
hope for the future.

We don’t have much time left in our webinar.

I think we have to finish in the next 15 minutes or so. So I shall go straight to
40 the questions from our attendees. The first question that we have here and

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