PRESS RELEASE

(16.12.2014)

On Women Who Lead: A conversation with former Ambassador Nirupama Rao

The Consulate General of India, New York, held its Tenth Media India Lecture on Tuesday December 16, 2014, with the guest speaker former Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao on the topic of "Women who Lead". Professor Manu Bhagavan was the moderator of the event and facilitated the discussion with the audience. Consul General Ambassador Dnyaneshwar Mulay opened the discussion announcing that for the year of 2015, the Media-India Lectures will be given only by women. Ambassador Rao's lecture serves as the inaugural event for next year's series.

A woman of many firsts, Ambassador Rao is well-acquainted with the world of Indian diplomacy. For her talk, she focused on the role of three Indian women, Hansa Jivraj Mehta, Vijayalakshmi Pandit and Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, who made it possible for contemporary Indian women to be actively enrolled in Indian foreign affairs. These three women, remarked Ambassador Rao, have made pivotal contributions to democratic India, but are not sufficiently credited for their efforts, in addition to a collective amnesia about women's contribution to the field of international diplomacy. "They were," asserted Ambassador Rao, "firmly Indian, highly sophisticated, and walked with everyone in the city and the countryside with utter sensitivity... This trinity of women, remains as revolutionary and path-breaking today, as it was 60 years ago, when we emerged a young democracy".

Mehta, who was the president of the All-India Women's Congress, was appointed as India's delegate to the UNHRC in 1947, and it was upon her insistence that the wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was altered from "all men are created equal" to "all human beings are created equal". Similarly, Pandit, was also a very influential woman in the world of Indian diplomacy. She was the first female president appointed to the UN General Assembly, in addition to being the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet portfolio as minister for local self-government and public health. Finally, Chattopadhyay, the founder of the National School of Drama, the Sangeet Natak Akademi and the Central Cottage Industries Emporium, was the first Indian woman to be arrested on political charges, selling contraband salt in the 1930s. She is also attributed to leading the renaissance of Indian handicrafts, handlooms, and subsequently increasing the economic power of women by pioneering a cooperative movement that still flourishes today.

The three pioneers discussed by Ambassador Rao -- Mehta, Pandit, and Chattopadhyay -- were women that embodied the core idea of post-independent India -- democratic, inclusive and progressive. They defied the stereotypes of the role of women as timid and voiceless, unsuitable for international and diplomatic representation. These women, remarked Ambassador Rao, answered Gandhi's clarion call for gender equality because "India cannot be free until its women are free".

Although Ambassador Rao admitted that she did have to face challenges similar to the women of pre-Independence India, she claimed that there are still "too many women, in too many countries, speaking the same language of silence". The culture of silence about injustice towards women still needed to be tackled and can only be addressed once society collectively reaches a critical mass of educated citizens that are dedicated to reform. In discussion with the audience, Ambassador Rao also predicted the emergence of a new wave of India's own feminist movement that would break the cultural stereotypes of women who needed saving. Ambassador Rao's research on these three influential women comes at a time when the debate about women's role in modern India is at its peak.