Sari Diplomacy

The beautiful and traditional women’s apparel in India is fast becoming an idiom for regional diplomacy. Ms. Sushma Swaraj, the new Minister of External Affairs in India, embarked on her first foreign visit to Bangladesh and was welcomed with saris by both the Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Haseena, and her rival Begum Khalida Zia of the opposition.

Photograph courtesy of the US Embassy New Delhi and used via Wikimedia Commons.

Swaraj is the second woman to be foreign minister in India – a post which demands rigorous and vigorous interaction with the world. And knowing the affinity that women usually have for clothes, Swaraj too carried with her as gifts beautiful silk saris for the Begums of Bangladesh.

This visit to Bangladesh was a very important one. For one, Bangladesh is a neighbouring country which shares a long border with India, as well as cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and emotive ties. It was carved out of India in 1947 during the partition and formed the eastern wing of the new state of Pakistan. Later, in 1971, it broke up to emerge as the independent country of Bangladesh. For many years insurgents and rebels of India’s restive north-east region had used Bangladesh’s territory as their hideouts and for arms smuggling. However, Sheikh Haseena is well-disposed towards India. Her father, the late Mujibur Rehman, the architect of modern Bangladesh, was helped by India during its liberation movement. In her last stint as Prime Minister she helped deliver many insurgent leaders wanted by India and busted many of their hideouts, helping to end anti-Indian operations. However, there are issues of water sharing that still need to be sorted out. This made Swaraj’s visit as new head of India’s external affairs to that country an extremely important one.

Acknowledging this, along with the fact that women, for various reasons, are deemed to be better bridge builders than men, we can now look forward to an era of better bilateral relations with that country. But saris apart, what makes this visit interesting is that it is the first stand alone official trip that Swaraj has undertaken.

Swaraj is only the second woman to be foreign minister, first being the late Indira Gandhi. Though women are no strangers to politics in India, a woman heading this sensitive and plum post is exciting for us. In the last couple of years the world has been horrified by a string of stories about rape and sexual molestation in India. For India’s women, certainly this has been a harrowing time. The growing violence against women has been a critical cause for concern as have the ineffectual existing laws which are good in intent but go unimplemented and fail as deterrents to crime.

Now that might just be set to change. In any case, a new wave of optimism seems to have been ushered in with a new government assuming power in New Delhi. It all began with the elections in April-May this year to the sixteenth Lok Sabha – the lower house of the Indian parliament. A centre right party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, together with its National Democratic Alliance, won with an overwhelming mandate and formed the new government. Seven high profile women have been made ministers – of them six are of cabinet rank, heading powerful ministries like External Affairs, Human Resources Development, Women and Child, Minority Affairs, Water Resources and Food Processing. Women thus make up 25 per cent of the new cabinet.

A woman foreign minister is not a new phenomenon in South Asia. Nepal and Pakistan have had women heading this important ministry and Bangladesh currently has Ms. Dipumoni, a woman in this position. Neither are women political leaders a rare phenomenon. Sirimavo Bandarnaike of Sri Lanka became the first woman in the world to hold the office of Prime Minister. She was later followed by Ms. Indira Gandhi of India and even later by Ms. Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and then by Begum Sheikh Haseena and Begum Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh. Sheikh Haseena is again currently the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

India is the largest and most powerful country in the region. Globally its clout is growing. As the world’s third largest economy and the world’s largest democracy, India is amongst the ’emerging powers.’ This is reflected in its membership in various multilateral fora like BRICS, G-20, IBSA, BIMSTEC, and others. It is also a contender for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and is pushing for reform. In such a setting, the role of the country’s foreign minister assumes ever greater importance and significance. At the same time, India is still a developing country and one that is in transit. Hence, problems and concerns at home remain pressing. Not least amongst them the concerns over women’s security and empowerment.

Can a woman thus juggle this role better than a man? In general, are women better negotiators and diplomats? Time will tell how a woman shaped India’s foreign policy when the country stood at this significant juncture in its post-colonial history.

Aditi Bhaduri is an award-winning independent journalist and researcher, who writes for both the Indian and international media. She also acts as a consultant to various organizations on issues of foreign policy, conflict resolution, and gender.