How India’s experience reflects on women’s evolving role in peacekeeping 

Earlier this year, New Delhi assumed a significant position in global discourse on peacekeeping by hosting the inaugural Conference on Women Peacekeepers, which brought together female peacekeepers from India and 35 other countries from the Global South.

This gathering in February coincided with the 25th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which reaffirms the importance of women’s equal participation in not just prevention and resolution of conflicts, but also in humanitarian response, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction. 

For India, which is one of the largest contributors of personnel to UN peacekeeping operations, this conference represented both a recognition of its considerable contributions and an opportunity to appraise the future courses of its gender-inclusive peacekeeping efforts.

Let’s examine how India’s peacekeeping legacy has shaped its domestic and global standing. How far has India contributed to advancing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda through UN peacekeeping? How effectively has this translated into domestic reforms?

India’s peacekeeping legacy

India began its engagement with UN peacekeeping in 1953 – just six years after gaining independence – with the deployment of Indian medical personnel to the UN operation in Korea.  In the 1960s – four decades before the formal adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 – Indian women medical officers were deployed to the Congo. 

However, the most significant milestone occurred in 2007, when India deployed the world’s first all-female Formed Police Unit (FPU) to Liberia, a nation recovering from protracted civil conflict. Currently, more than 150 Indian women serve as peacekeepers across six critical missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Lebanon, Golan Heights, and Western Sahara. 

India has recently deployed a women’s platoon to Sudan’s Abyei region as part of the United Nations Interim Security Force (UNISFA), marking its largest single contingent of women peacekeepers since the mission in Liberia.

Guided by the teachings of Ashoka, along with pacifist traditions of Buddhism and Jainism, and further enriched by the ideal of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence, India’s peacekeeping legacy stands as a tangible expression of its foreign policy. 

Distinct from interventionist approaches (historically employed by colonial powers), India’s post-colonial identity allowed it to position itself as a collaborative partner to fellow newly independent nations, emphasising solidarity and mutual respect. 

Anchored in dialogue, diplomacy, and cooperation, this commitment is carried forward through the Centre for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK) in Delhi. The centre conducts training and capacity-building programmes, including specialised courses for women peacekeepers, such as those held for ASEAN nations in 2023.

Notably, Major Radhika Sen received recognition as the United Nations Military Gender Advocate of the Year for 2023, exemplifying the caliber of India’s contributions.

How women transform peacekeeping outcomes

The functional value of women’s participation in peacekeeping missions has been reiterated time and again. For instance, a study based on 78 interviews with UN personnel established that women’s participation enhances community engagement and helps change societal perceptions regarding women’s capabilities. 

Female peacekeepers can access populations and environments that remain closed to male personnel, thereby facilitating intelligence gathering and trust-building, essential for mission success. Studies like Making a difference in peacekeeping operations: Voices of South African women peacekeepers also indicate that when female personnel constitute a significant number of a mission’s personnel, local women demonstrate greater comfort in participating in peace committees and reporting incidents of violence.

Findings of some other quantitative research are particularly compelling: peace agreements incorporating women and civil society organisations demonstrate 64 per cent lower failure rates and 35 per cent greater probability of sustaining peace for at least 15 years. Some other studies also establish that missions with higher female participation correlate with increased reporting of sexual violence and improved implementation of women’s rights provisions. 

Experiences from the field show how Indian women peacekeepers combine sensitivity, cultural awareness, and problem-solving skills with strong negotiating ability. Lieutenant Colonel Neha Khajuria’s initiative to address educational gaps in the Congo and the UN’s first-ever female police advisor, Kiran Bedi, on ensuring adequate attention to women and children, together underline how India links gender inclusion with more effective and humane peacekeeping.

Is there a need to rethink women’s role in peacekeeping?

However, as women’s participation in peacekeeping has increased, concerns over the masculine and hierarchical culture of these institutions largely persist. Feminist critiques caution that the inclusion of women in peacekeeping – though presented as progress toward gender equality – often instrumentalises their presence to enhance mission efficiency while reinforcing masculine norms, militarised structures, and existing global power hierarchies. 

Amid such global critiques of gendered militarism, India’s experience offers a constructive lens for understanding how women’s participation can evolve toward meaningful engagement, institutional reform, and the transformative potential of peacekeeping.

India presents itself globally as a leader in advancing gender equality in peacekeeping. This is evident in Defence Minister Rajnath Singh highlighting greater roles for women in the Armed Forces and UN missions. Through the CUNPK, which trains over 12,000 troops annually and offers dedicated programmes for women, this commitment is translated into concrete action on the ground. 

Despite this global acclaim, domestic reality appears a little complex, particularly around issues like: 

1. The implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) action plan.

2. The implementation of the Women’s Reservation Bill that reserves one-third of parliamentary seats.

3. India’s 151 global ranking in women’s economic participation as per the World Economic Forum report.

4. Disparities in gender parity and equality in various sectors, and gender-based violence.

How global leadership reflects on domestic reforms 

In this context, it must be noted that states with robust domestic gender equality frameworks often prove more effective in deploying and supporting female peacekeepers, establishing a beneficial cycle wherein domestic progress strengthens international contributions. 

India, like numerous countries, continues to navigate the challenge of translating international leadership into comprehensive domestic reform. Women officers in the Indian Armed Forces were granted permanent commissions only in 2020, but they still remain largely confined to non-combat roles. In this context, the move to induct women soldiers in India’s TA battalions can be seen as a welcome step.

Nonetheless, similar to other countries in South Asia, service in security forces requires a transformation of deeply embedded cultural and organisational hierarchies. Women in uniform frequently face challenges, such as family responsibilities, motherhood, cultural sensitivity, sexual harassment, and gender prejudices. Such factors often relegate them to stereotypical desk-based roles rather than field duties, overlooking their professional capability. 

While India’s peacekeeping record projects a global commitment to gender inclusion, its domestic security structures still reflect inequalities. This gap matters because research shows that countries with better domestic gender equality are more effective at deploying female peacekeepers. 

So where does India go from here? The path forward requires considerable structural alignment through measures like:

1.Strengthening domestic foundations by passing meaningful legislation that advances women’s participation.

2. Addressing biases within security forces and creating genuine parity.

3. Moving beyond the narrative of numbers (like deploying the largest all-women peacekeeping force) to help our coveted peacekeepers understand, support and promote local women’s participation and leadership in conflict zones rather than a simplistic assumption of outside intervention as the solution.

The February 2025 conference offered a platform for India to lead differently, not by reiterating the hierarchical capacity building that reflects North-South dynamics, but by facilitating a space for Global South countries to articulate indigenous visions of gender-inclusive peacekeeping that acknowledged colonial legacies and respect for local contexts. 

Post read questions

Discuss the significance of India’s deployment of the world’s first all-female Formed Police Unit (FPU) to Liberia. What long-term impacts did it generate in the host country and for India’s global image?

How does the participation of women in peacekeeping enhance mission effectiveness? Illustrate. 

Discuss the role of the Centre for United Nations Peacekeeping (CUNPK) in capacity building for women peacekeepers from India and the Global South.

What are the key structural and cultural barriers that restrict women’s full participation in India’s Armed Forces, and how do these affect peacekeeping deployments?

Evaluate India’s role in advancing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda through UN peacekeeping. How far has this translated into domestic reform?

(Shamna Thacham Poyil is a Doctoral Research Scholar in the Department of Political Science, University of Delhi.) 

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