Does India need a feminist foreign policy?

In ultra-conservative bastions around the world, and socio-political contexts including some policy circles where the word “feminist” carries very negative stereotypes, the answer to such a question is already predetermined. Where the matter concerns foreign policy, many critics believe that only a realist framework advances national interest. Yet feminist foreign policies were formally adopted in several countries across the Global North and Global South, such as Sweden, France, Canada, Mexico, Argentina and Chile. Several other countries have adopted some features of FFP. These include nations with high GDI (Gender Development Index) including Nordic countries (apart from Sweden, where FFP was rolled back) such as Iceland, Norway, Finland and Denmark, other developed Western countries such as Netherlands, UK, Ireland and Switzerland, as well as Indo-Pacific countries such as Australia. Indeed, it is unsurprising that my previous article on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) in the Times of India, which mentioned that I teach a university course on Feminist Foreign Policy, piqued curiosity in some readers. So, what exactly is feminist foreign policy?

Simply put, feminist foreign policy (FFP) applies a gender lens to various aspects of foreign policy, from a more equitable representation of women in every level of diplomacy, to gender-responsive policies pertaining to defence and security architecture, gender budgeting and global finance, trade, developmental aid, energy and climate action, conflict-zone peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance. The four Rs of feminist foreign policy are rights, representation, resources, and reality. Examples are policy decisions to not sell arms and defense equipment to regimes guilty of heinous women’s rights violations nor finance militant networks carrying out widespread civilian abuses against international humanitarian law, evaluate the gendered impact of trade and foreign aid, formulate strong policies against human trafficking, not allow the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and in conflict-zone peacekeeping, ensure funding for gender equality initiatives, and include women’s voices in processes of peace and reconstruction.

Also, feminist foreign policy cannot be viewed as separate from a nation’s domestic policies on gender. The resulting consternation around international scrutiny and a charge of double standards often prevents nations from adopting feminist foreign policies. As a former Indian Ambassador to France and Switzerland said to me during a conversation, India’s domestic developmental indicators on gender require more work before feminist foreign policy can be considered. That said, a Global South country like Mexico also faces a somewhat similar conundrum, given high rates of sexual and domestic violence, feminisation of poverty and other gender-related inequities – and has formally adopted FFP to advance gender equality. In a 2024 article on India’s case (‘Inclusivity in Action: Evolution of Feminist Principles in India’s Foreign Policy,’ Henrich Boll Stiftung, New Delhi), the authors argue that India has already adapted some feminist principles through specific domestic policy schemes for marginalised women and increasing women’s representation in foreign policy. Discussing India’s specific historical and socio-political context, the article outlines several intersectional inequities such as gender and caste discrimination as well as gendered impacts of foreign policy that need to be addressed. India could thus use existing comparative country cases and region-specific research as a framework to develop FFP for its own unique context and ground realities. In fact, reality is the fourth ‘R’ of FFP, which acknowledges that policies are tailored to national contexts.

Some months ago, I delivered a public lecture in an event on Feminist Foreign Policy, whose Chief Guest was a former Foreign Secretary and Indian Ambassador to several countries, including USA and China. A recurrent theme was whether including more women in policy and diplomacy is often just an exercise in tokenism. A 2025 policy brief (‘How do Women Ambassadors Reshape Diplomacy at the UN Security Council’) by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in Norway is instructive here, since it argues that foreign policy outcomes were not significantly different even in contexts where the formal inclusion of women has reached a critical mass, as diplomacy continues to be a male-dominated field with narrow understandings of security and bureaucratic constraints. It is still advisable to bring more women into policy and diplomacy for a long-term inclusive vision, the brief demonstrates. In my lecture I discussed several aspects of FFP globally as well as in an Indian context, including progressive cultural interpretations, such that FFP is not seen as a Western-imposed construct, in postcolonial and Global South contexts where such impositions are often viewed as imperialistic.

To sum up, feminism is not a monolith and feminist foreign policies can and are adapted to different national and regional realities such that, much like policies in general, no two nations have exactly similar FFPs. For India, which is uniquely positioned to play the role of interlocutor between the Global North and Global South, adapting a more comprehensive FFP would signal a policy commitment to tackling gender inequities on multiple fronts, positioning India more strongly in terms of ethical leadership in the Global South.

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