Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations Parvathaneni Harish at the UN Security Council open debate on women, peace and security in New York on Tuesday. PTI

Speaking at the UNSC Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said Pakistan’s statements on Jammu and Kashmir were “an annual ritual of misdirection and hyperbole”.

“A country that bombs its own people and conducted a campaign of genocidal mass rape of 4,00,000 women citizens by its own army cannot lecture others on peace or human rights. The world sees through Pakistan’s propaganda,” he said.

Harish underscored that India’s record on women, peace and security stood in stark contrast — “unblemished and unscathed” — and reflected a long tradition of empowering women in peacekeeping, long before the adoption of the landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

“India recognised long before the world did that women are indispensable agents of peace,” he said, recalling that Indian women medical officers were deployed to the Congo in the 1960s in one of the UN’s earliest peacekeeping missions.

That early leadership reached a milestone in 2007, when India deployed the world’s first all-female Formed Police Unit to Liberia — an initiative Harish described as “a game-changer” that helped rebuild communities, reduce crime and inspire Liberian women to join law enforcement.

The envoy also cited India’s trailblazers in global peacekeeping — Dr Kiran Bedi, the first woman to head the UN Police Division; and Major Suman Gawani and Major Radhika Sen, recipients of the UN Military Gender Advocate Awards in 2019 and 2024, respectively. “It is no longer a question of whether women can do peacekeeping. Rather, it is whether peacekeeping can do without women,” Harish said.

Highlighting India’s global capacity-building role, he noted that the Centre for United Nations Peacekeeping in New Delhi trains over 12,000 troops annually, including specialised programmes for women officers.

India also hosted the International Conference on Women Peacekeepers from the Global South in February 2025, drawing representatives from 35 nations, followed by a UN Women Military Officers Course in August with participants from 15 countries.

“As we look ahead. India remains unwavering in its commitment to the women, peace and security agenda and stands ready to share its expertise with partners, especially in the Global South,” he said.