Description
The proposed paper aims to investigate, why postcolonial states like India (with a focus on Modi 2014-2021), despite their stated commitment to gender norms, display strategic hesitancy to subscribe to the template of feminist foreign policy. Drawing on a postcolonial/ intersectional lens, the aim is to unpack the colonial logics, and normative hierarchies that underpin the universal template of feminist foreign policy despite its claim to epistemic plurality. The case of India, is particularly relevant, as India as a rising power claims itself also as a ‘moral power’ with a stated commitment to gender norms, but still steers clear from either adopting the NAP, or FFP. The empirical focus has a twofold purpose: first it explicates the feminist strategic thinking in different phases of Indian Foreign Policy, with a particular focus on the period 2014-2022. Secondly it highlights why postcolonial states like India, display strategic hesitancy to deploy the term feminist foreign policy. The paper problematizes a straightjacketed reading of this strategic hesitancy as case of lack of normative commitment, but more so as a case where states like India, look at templates of feminist foreign policy hinged on colonial logics that perpetuates structural and global inequalities. Through this analysis the attempt is to push for decolonizing the universal/ethical templates of feminist foreign policy that stem from the Global North.
