Anuradha Chenoy and Shweta Singh, in “Continuing Security Council Resolution 1325 in India: Thinking Feminist Foreign Policy” (India Quarterly, 2025) interrogate what it means to engage with Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) from a Global South perspective, with a specific focus on India. Rather than simply advocating for the adoption of a Western-derived FFP framework, the authors call for a grounded, context-sensitive approach that builds on the principles of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Their core argument is that India, despite not formally adopting FFP, already exhibits feminist traits in its foreign policy practice—though inconsistently, and often without recognition from dominant global discourses.
The article opens by questioning the normative authority of FFP as it has emerged in Euro-American settings. Countries such as Sweden and Canada have framed FFP in terms of rights, representation, and resources, yet these same states often pursue militarised or extractive policies abroad. Chenoy and Singh highlight this contradiction to suggest that adopting the language of feminism does not necessarily equate to feminist practice. Conversely, they argue, India’s foreign policy may be advancing feminist aims—such as prioritising dialogue, multilateralism, and development-oriented diplomacy—even without claiming the FFP label.
Chenoy and Singh’s intervention is not to position India defensively, but to propose a recalibration of how Feminist Foreign Policy is conceptualised. They argue that FFP should not be assessed through a checklist of normative commitments borrowed from the Global North, but through attention to local histories, postcolonial realities, and intersectional feminist critique. In this regard, India’s normative emphasis on non-alignment, peaceful conflict resolution, and South-South cooperation can be read as resonant with feminist principles such as care ethics, inclusivity, and resistance to militarisation.
However, the authors are clear-eyed about the limitations of India’s track record. They point to the absence of a national action plan on UNSCR 1325, the underrepresentation of women in diplomatic leadership, and the persistence of patriarchal norms within policymaking institutions. Here, Chenoy and Singh use feminist critique not to indict the state from an external standpoint, but to highlight the internal tensions and missed opportunities within India’s approach to WPS. The article advocates for feminist transformation not only in policy outcomes but in the structures of governance and knowledge production that shape foreign policy agendas.
One of the article’s most compelling contributions lies in its call to “think with” feminist foreign policy, rather than simply “adopt” it. This move de-essentialises the concept and opens space for reinterpretation. India’s contributions to UN peacekeeping, gender-inclusive development initiatives in the neighbourhood, and COVID-era health diplomacy are treated not as marginal to feminist concerns, but as possible sites of feminist praxis—so long as they are reframed to centre equity, representation, and accountability.
The authors also foreground the epistemic hierarchy embedded in global FFP discourse, which tends to privilege Northern institutions and actors while marginalising voices from the Global South. Chenoy and Singh assert that Indian scholars, diplomats, and activists have long contributed to peacebuilding and gender-sensitive diplomacy, yet remain peripheral in global norm-making circles. Their intervention therefore calls for a pluralist feminist lens that recognises agency and innovation outside the dominant liberal paradigm.
Rather than setting up a binary between “real” and “performative” feminism, the article insists that feminist foreign policy should be evaluated in relation to structural transformation. This includes attention to militarisation, economic exploitation, caste and religious inequalities, and the wider geopolitics of knowledge. For India, the path toward a meaningful feminist foreign policy will require institutional reforms, stronger civil society engagement, and a willingness to challenge both global and domestic power hierarchies.
In conclusion, Chenoy and Singh argue that India’s engagement with UNSCR 1325 and WPS principles provides a foundation for feminist thinking in foreign policy, even in the absence of formal adoption of the FFP framework. Their article is not a defence of India’s current position, but a call to reimagine what feminist foreign policy might mean when shaped by postcolonial experience, regional priorities, and grassroots feminist practice.
By shifting the lens from policy declaration to political practice, and from Western templates to locally rooted frameworks, Chenoy and Singh make a compelling case for rethinking feminist foreign policy as a plural, evolving and contextually embedded endeavour. Their work is a vital reminder that feminist transformation in international relations must be as attentive to history, power and justice as it is to representation and rights.