The conversation with Ambassador P Harish has been edited for clarity and bravity.
Question: P Harish G, when it comes to women’s rights worldwide, you must remember the name of Hansa Mehta. For the information of our audience, tell us that Hansa Mehta is known for what special work?
See, there were many fighters and celebrities in our freedom struggle, who have emerged, who have shown new ways not only India but also to the world and have had a great impact on these national and international policies.
One such woman is the leadership of Dr. Hansa Mehta from Honstie India. She was president of the All India Women’s Conference. He was also involved in the draft activities of the Indian Constitution. At that time, the declaration of universal human rights in the world was discussed. In this discussion, Dr. Hansa Mehta participated as the leader of the delegation of India and his article was the most important in the draft of UDHR Declaration.
It was written in the draft that all men were born with freedom and equal rights. However, Dr. Hansa Mehta said that this sentence was based on sex and he was strongly opposed to it. He said that all people were born with freedom and equal dignity and rights, that is, they talked about to change the man and keep a man … it was a new episode for the whole world and he became a guide. There was a historical and revolutionary change and the inclusive language was not in the discussion of the people at that time.
However, Dr. Hansa Mehta saw from his experience and at that time the feelings between women kept the world on the stage and started a new round of a new inclusive structure and I believe it was a very important and revolutionary event in the fight for women’s rights and so today we remember Dr. Hansa.
Question: India has an important role in the UN peacekeeping mission. A conference has recently been held in Delhi with the presence of women in the UN peace defense campaign, so tell me what is the situation about Indian women’s presence in the UN peace defense mission?
India has made the biggest contribution to peace and in the last 5 years, about 1 lakh troops from our country were deployed on more than 5 UN missions worldwide. He tried to protect peace around the world. More than 5 people left their lives for world peace.
In 2007, a female police unit was deployed in Liberia for the first time in India, which was a revolutionary step at that time. For the first time, a female unit participated in this national peace defense mission. After that, India also deployed a female team in Congo. And after that, a similar female group was deployed in Sudan and South Sudan.
See, when there is a struggle or conflict, it has a very bad effect on women and these women’s disadvantages can be understood by other women. So when India deployed female troops to this national mission, its purpose is to empower women, emphasize livelihood development and to make an active impact on other communities activities.
We held a conference in New Delhi last month and the main theme of this conference was: Increasing the role of women among peace guards, a global Southern experience. Women officials from 35 countries participated in it. UN General Secretary, Jai Peer Lacrowa also participated in it.
It has been seen as the same result. Today, the debate is not on the issue that women can participate in this national peace defense mission at all … Today’s debate is the subject of peace protection mission, to meet their goals, women can work without peacekeepers. If you said, if you said, 180 degrees were changed, so this conference was very important and I believe that in the coming days, female peacekeepers have a lot of contributions and will be more active and we will see that it will continue to grow.
Question-We can see that India is particularly active in achieving Sustainable Development SDGs and one of them, especially gender equality, talk about women’s protection and their strength. So what steps India is taking in the strength of women?
SDGs emphasize the empowerment of five women … she is very important. India has taken an important revolutionary step to promote the implementation of women’s empowerment. In English, we call it SDG localization or localization of sustainable development goals, in Hindi.
This is a very revolutionary step because we are empowering the magistrate at the district level so that these continuous development goals are available to them, they are found to be in reality every day.
So this year, this year, the proposal below 1325 has been 25 years of age to the WLS agenda of female peace and protection. We see the empowerment of women from the point of view of the whole society and the entire government. We see and accept from that point of view.
We guarantee that women, fundamental rights and the Government of India have established strong laws and policy structures. If harassment occurs in the workplace, if domestic violence occurs, it includes important laws to protect women. Government campaigns – Betty and Betty Padho or Prime Minister’s mother Pandana Yojana, all of them are promoting the education of the daughters and providing financial support to women who are pregnant and breastfeeding.
We have also emphasized on the development of scholarship and skills, and last year, a third of the Indian parliament has been preserved for women in Parliament, which is a very revolutionary step and it will promote women’s political empowerment. I say that it will make women’s political voices very strong.
Question: India is also very active in development, in the southern-south countries, and is running many development plans for UN partnership. So in which country is this development plan going?
India and UN Development Partnership Fund reflect our priorities. India is important for us to assist us in the developing country or the developing countries surrounded by the lowest developed countries or land or small islands, which is the southern country of the global southern countries.
We provide our partners to help them according to their needs. They focus on demand and their needs. There is a large part of the national ownership and we concentrate on promoting their civic power on their local powers, that is, on these funds. It is the agenda of the 2030 development, which was very important in all our UN here.
We also pay more attention to our project. It has many things: health, female development, water and hygiene, human development, ICT and climate capacity. There are more than 5 projects that we run through in many countries through this fund.
I would like to specify the women’s empowerment projects in Benin, Zambia, Kyrgyzstan and Malawi, where development plans are going on with the results of Concrete.
This fund shows a strong partnership between India and the United Nations and India so far has contributed a total of $ 150 million for the fund. In Africa, America and Asian regions, our projects are currently running in about 65 countries.
Question: India is in favor of the Multipurpose Qutumbakam policy, which matches the multilateral, where all the countries are supposed to be taken side by side. So what is India doing to strengthen the multi-paraview or make it successful?
The basic consciousness of Indian civilization or the main mantra is inspired by Vasudiva Kutumbakam. Vasudhiva Qutumbakam means that we consider the whole world as our family. Under this principle, under our methods in all multilateral forums, we follow this basic mantra of this principle.
As far as the multilateral cooperation, our promise about this policy is always strong. Both the multilateral and the United Nations can be called the two sides of the same coin. India -UN Partnership Fund gives an important evidence that when we play partnership with other countries in the multilateral forum, our view is about to focus on the future. We are moving from this creative point of view.
However, we all know that the current UN system and structure is now demanding great improvement. The UN structure does not reflect today’s reality, these 5 world organizations are of the year old … as the UN general secretary said that our great -grandfather was not good for our grandchildren’s era.
This world organization is not according to today’s reality, so we have always praised and supported the reconstituted multilateral. Multinime is very important … especially in the United Nations … I have repeated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement at the future conference in the future, where he said that reform is the key to relevance. This is very important. Improvement is important, we can no longer avoid it.
We will stand up to realize this view. We will continue to try continuously.