– By BHUMIKA
– Intern IPPCS’21
– Political Science student at IPCW,DU
In 2014, the newly elected Swedish Social Democratic-Green Party Government widely and proudly revealed that it would in the future pursue a Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP), with the out- spoken objective to become the ‘strongest voice for gender equality and full employment of human rights for all women and girls’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2015). Sweden’s feminist foreign policy platform additionally signals a strong support for United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, adopted in 2000, and related resolutions on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). Furthermore, the advancement of a distinctively feminist foreign policy was steadily connected to Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, a top negotiator with past experience as the UN unique delegate on sexual violence in conflict. On various events, Wallström has accentuated both the connection between ladies’ cooperation in worldwide legislative issues and economical harmony and the idea that ladies’ strengthening decidedly impacts on public and global security.
WHAT IS FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICY?
In reacting to the regularly posed questions of precisely what a feminist foreign policy involves, Wallström has alluded to a women’s activist tool kit, which comprises of three Rs: Representation, Rights, and Reallocation. Basically, it is a functioning technique and a point of view that accepts three Rs as its beginning stage and is based on a fourth R. The ramifications is that the Swedish Foreign Service, in the entirety of its parts, will endeavor to reinforce women’s and girls’ Rights, Representation and Resources, based on the Reality in which they live.
In 2016, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs introduced long haul aims for six focus areas, with substantial directions of what to do, just as how to do it, while pursuing its FFP (Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2016). The six center regions are: (1) full enjoyment of human rights; (2) independence from physical, mental and sexual violence; (3) participation in forestalling and settling clashes, and post-conflict peacebuilding; (4) political support and impact in every aspect of society; (5) economic rights and empowerment; and (6) sexual and conceptive wellbeing and rights.
Sweden’s feminist foreign policy is a groundbreaking plan that expects to change structures and upgrade the perceivability of women and girls as main actors. Gender inequality and discrimination in the entirety of life’s stages and settings will be neutralized. The approach depends on multifacetedness, which means considering the way that individuals have distinctive day to day environments, levels of impact and needs.
INDIA’S NEED FOR A FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICY
While Sweden’s thorough and straight forward commitment to pursue a feminist foreign policy is exceptional, other states have also sought to advance pro-gender norms and the WPS-agenda, as part of their foreign policy conduct. For example, during her residency as the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton dispatched the ‘Hillary Doctrine‘ which outlined the oppression of ladies as a security danger to the United States and the world. Under the initiative of previous British Foreign Secretary William Hague, the United Kingdom promoted a normative shift towards the annihilation of sexual violence in conflict and Australia’s first female foreign minitser, Julie Bishop, while being in office, incessantly advocated the mainstreaming of gender in international institutions. As for India, the discourse is a work in progress, with a large number of scholars very aptly highlighting the moral and strategic advantage of such a notion for the country. More so with the recent release of annual Gender Gap Report 2021 by the World Economic Forum, as India has slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries that were covered. The index is majorly based on four dimensions, where political participation maintains the largest gap globally, worse than the 2019 edition of the report. Within the 156 nations covered, women hold only 26% of parliamentary seats and 22% of ministerial positions. India in some ways reflects this widening gap, where the number of ministers declined from 23.1% in 2019 to 9.1% in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4%.
Being a non-permanent member of the UNSC and as of late chosen to the UN Commission on the Status of Women for a four year term in September 2020, India needs to play a critical part. Gender considerations in India’s foreign policy aren’t a new concept. However found generally under the development assistance and peacekeeping, these have been inconceivably fruitful. From 2007 when India deployed the very first female unit to the UN Mission in Libya to support gender strengthening programs through SAARC, IBSA, IORA and other multilateral fora, our projects have been focused on making women the driving force for inclusive and sustainable growth. A significant number of our abroad projects in accomplice nations have a gender component, as found in Afghanistan, Lesotho and Cambodia. At home, 2015 saw gender budget exercise within the MEA towards development assistance.
What is required is a more formal planned methodology that goes past a simple improvement model to more extensive access, portrayal and dynamic. The WEF report and other comparative lists is a call to improve on the domestic front; regardless of how “feminist” our foreign and security policy may be, without balance at home it will not endure.
GOING AHEAD WITH FPP
FFP offers India a stage to extend its responsibilities and make its commitment felt as a materializing power, one that moves toward the subject of safety according to a comprehensive perspective. India’s previous endeavors signal that it is prepared to move towards FFP—it sent the principal all female police power unit to Liberia in 2007; effectively partook in UNSC debates on women, harmony, and security; and strongly supported women’s inclusion in peacemaking and peacekeeping.
India can move towards a FFP by first effectively appointing women to posts at different policy levels and including them straightforwardly in the direction of its foreign relations. Second, India can make a more grounded obligation to incorporate ladies at the decision-making tables, either through quota system or just by guaranteeing that there is an equivalent portrayal of the genders. Third, India can team up with different global, territorial, and national civil society associations to guarantee the legitimate execution of the FFP structure.
India’s verifiable record on women’s rights—or rather, women’s oppression—makes it improbable to quickly and viably take on a FFP system. Male centric qualities are so profoundly imbued inside Indian culture that India has scarcely figured out how to achieve an adjustment of the arrangement of disparity at home. Subsequently, it does not have the credibility to accept women’s activist qualities in its worldwide associations. A FFP approach may not just help India in cultivating inventive perspectives, yet in addition permit it to expand upon its customary perspective on security, work with assorted portrayal, and build long-term bilateral relations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Malena Rosén Sundström & Ole Elgström (2020) Praise or critique? Sweden’s feminist foreign policy in the eyes of its fellow EU members, European Politics and Society, 21:4, 418-433.
- Aggestam, K., & Bergman-Rosamond, A. (2016). Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy in the Making: Ethics, Politics, and Gender. Ethics & International Affairs, 30(3), 323-334.
- Aggestam K, Bergman Rosamond A, Kronsell A. Theorising feminist foreign policy. International Relations. 2019;33(1):23-39.
- Khushi Singh Rathore, Opinion – A Feminist Foreign Policy for India: Where to Turn? International Relations. AUG 6 2021
- Akanksha Khuller, India Must Move Towards a Feminist Foreign Policy, South Asian Voices, March 8, 202.
- https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/30/sweden-feminist-foreignpolicy/
- https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/margot-wallstrm-writes-about-a-new-landmark-in-indiasweden-relations/article7261338.ece
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