Women Go to War! Upending the ‘Prevention’ Pillar of the WPS Agenda: Can a Transformative Peace and Security Be Imagined?

Paradoxically, is India’s global lead in orienting the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda towards incorporating more women in UN peacekeeping further skewing the peace agenda towards militarised security rather than a transformative peace? Are India, and indeed the UN’s actions, complicit in further militarising the WPS agenda and pushing back the anti-militarist goal of ‘Prevention’ of wars? This article analyses the shifts and contestations in the evolution of the WPS agenda in its 25th year when not only is there a regressive pushback against gender justice, but the red lines on the use of military force to settle differences are being crossed. The article grapples with the quandary of the displacement of the anti-militarist/disarmament agenda of the architects that birthed United Nations Resolution 1325 and its ever-tightening embrace of ‘making war safe for women’. It examines the narrowing of the liberal trope of full equal and meaningful ‘Participation’ to mean integrating women in military structures national and multilateral. Drawing upon critical analyses of Nepal’s National Action Plan, and India’s gender balancing initiatives in UN Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO) deployment, the article probes whether, in mainstreaming gender, there is scope for redefining the terms of ‘inclusion’ and ‘exploring’ non-militarised approaches to peacekeeping? Can there be a pushback against the gender essentialism of uniformed women peacekeepers providing the emotional labour of community outreach, and male peacekeepers supplying muscular protection?