Page 41 - A Gender-Sensitive Indian Foreign Policy- Why? and How?

Indian Council
of World Affairs

anyone in the panel is free to try answering it - how can a feminist policy
make a significant positive impact, I presume, here in our region, which has
deeply patriarchal communities, similar to what we see in South Asia, and,
this is the quote from the question, ‘where countries are driven more by guns
and weapons’. Would any of you like to answer that, any of our panellits? Can
I ask Swarna? Swarna, please.

Dr. Swarna I’ll just make a quick attempt. I think it is sort of a horse before cart, cart
Rajagopalan before horse question, because I don’t think it is the job of foreign policy to
make an impact on our deeply militarized and patriarchal societies. Rather
I think the impact works in the other direction and therefore we want to
transform our policies to be more feminist, more gender sensitive, more
compassionate, I think that will have to come from changing the way we
relate to each other and the culture of our public interactions, that is my
short answer.

Amb. Nirupama Rao Okay. I think that would make a lot of sense. This is a question that maybe
(Chair and Moderator)
Dr. Bindhulakshmi could try. It is a question from Urvashi Sharma. A number
of Bangladeshi women work as domestic help in various parts of India. It
gives them some sort of autonomy and economic security. How would a
gender sensitive policy recognize national security and the larger idea of
women’s emancipation in this scenario?

Dr. Bindhulakshmi I hope I will be able to answer that. When we talk about border migration,
and this rhetoric is very much there in India, Bangladeshi migrants are
seen as illegal, as a threat to national security. But how do we change that
imagination? Particularly if you try to look at the border crossings, if you
look at the borders, the borders are highly militarized. Militarized in the
sense that it is coming from a particular ideology within which we built
the borders. So isn’t it necessary to re-imagine the idea of security? Isn’t it
necessary to articulate the autonomy of women’s mobility? Women have a
right to move. How do we facilitate a sensitive articulation of that mobility.
I would like to take it up – methodologically; the moment we think,
talk about migration, the moment we talk about border crossing, we
immediately try to put in state boundaries. And we are very strictly with that
methodological nationalism. And it is time to think of trans-nationalism
which makes much sense. But how do we deal with this articulation of
trans-nationalism, it is beyond state borders. We cannot deal with the cases
of India and Bangladesh migrants separately. But how do we go beyond this
articulation, the strict regime of nationalism, to talk about migration. I hope 41
we can have more conversation.

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