Geopolitics & Diplomacy · September 2026
India at Bishkek: How India Turned the SCO’s 25th Birthday Into a Platform Against Terror
Prime Minister Modi walked into the 26th SCO Summit in Bishkek on August 31 with a clear agenda: use a forum dominated by China and Russia to push India’s position on terrorism, connectivity, and its growing role in Eurasia. He walked out with 13 agreed outcomes, English as an SCO official language, and a historic anti-terror declaration. Here is what happened — and why it matters.
The photograph tells a story by itself. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood together before the group photograph at the 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, shaking hands. Behind them: the leaders of eight other nations spanning from Minsk to Islamabad. It was September 1, 2026. The SCO was turning 25. And India, the democracy sitting awkwardly in a bloc built by China and Russia, was very visibly present.
The 2026 Bishkek SCO Summit was the 26th meeting of the Council of Heads of State, held from August 31 to September 1 under the theme “25 Years of the SCO: Together for Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity,” chaired by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov.
It was the 25th anniversary of an organisation that began as a six-nation Central Asian security forum and has since grown into one of the world’s largest multilateral blocs by population and land area. And for India, it was a summit that produced more concrete wins than most previous SCO meetings had.
What Is the SCO?
Full Name: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
Founded: June 15, 2001 — evolved from the “Shanghai Five” mechanism of 1996
Headquarters: Beijing (Secretariat); Tashkent (Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure — RATS)
Secretary-General: Nurlan Yermekbayev
Purpose: Regional security, counter-terrorism, economic cooperation, and connectivity across Eurasia
Scale: The 10 SCO member states have a collective GDP (PPP) of about 36% of the global total and a combined population of about 3.4 billion.
10 Full Member States (as of 2026):
- China — founding member (2001)
- Russia — founding member (2001)
- Kazakhstan — founding member (2001)
- Kyrgyzstan — founding member (2001)
- Tajikistan — founding member (2001)
- Uzbekistan — founding member (2001)
- India — joined 2017
- Pakistan — joined 2017
- Iran — joined 2023
- Belarus — joined 2024
Observer States:
Afghanistan (inactive), Mongolia
15 Dialogue Partners:
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Türkiye, United Arab Emirates
Next SCO Summit:
Pakistan assumed the SCO chairmanship for 2026–27 at Bishkek and is expected to host the next Council of Heads of State summit in Islamabad.
India joined the SCO in 2017 — in the same batch as Pakistan — and the decision has never been entirely comfortable. The SCO is dominated by China, which is India’s primary strategic rival. It includes Pakistan, with whom India has fought four wars.
It includes Russia, which is simultaneously a traditional partner and an increasingly China-aligned power. And its founding architecture — built on Chinese and Russian diplomatic priorities — does not always align with India’s.
And yet India stays, and attends, and increasingly shapes outcomes. The reason is simple: the SCO gives India a seat at the table in a region increasingly shaped by competition among larger powers, allowing it to protect its interests, track shifting geopolitical currents, and project itself as a reliable stakeholder.While it may not entirely shape the agenda, it gives New Delhi a first-hand view of the region and allows it to hedge its position with others.
What INDIA Said at Bishkek
India has a formula for SCO summits that has been consistent across multiple years: raise terrorism loudly and specifically, push connectivity, and propose cultural or digital cooperation initiatives. At Bishkek, all three were on display.
On terrorism, PM Modi was direct. “Can the open support for terrorism by certain countries ever be acceptable to us?” he asked. “Double standards on terrorism are unacceptable. Together, we must oppose terrorism in every form and manifestation. This is our responsibility towards humanity.”
The message was aimed without ambiguity at Pakistan and its state-supported sponsorship of cross-border terrorism — and equally at China, which has repeatedly shielded Pakistani-linked terror groups from UN designations.
PM Modi recalled the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 — in which 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed by Pakistan-linked terrorists in Kashmir — as an “open challenge to every nation and every individual who believes in humanity.” He thanked member countries for their strong solidarity in the wake of the Pahalgam attack, urged the group to hold countries that perpetrate and support cross-border terrorism accountable, and emphasised that there should be no double standards in dealing with terrorism.
On connectivity, PM Modi underscored India’s support for projects such as Chabahar port and the International North-South Transport Corridor, framing connectivity as essential to fostering development and building trust across the region.
On culture and innovation, PM Modi proposed commencing a Civilizational Dialogue Forum within the group to foster greater people-to-people ties and cultural understanding. He also called for a Youth Science Forum and a Young Author’s Conclave — initiatives that were subsequently included in the Bishkek Declaration.
The Bishkek Declaration — Key Points at a Glance
Adopted September 1, 2026 | 25th Anniversary of the SCO | Total outcomes: 13 (including 4 MoUs and 20+ decisions)
On Terrorism (India’s Priority Win):
- Member states strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, emphasising that “double standards” in the fight against terrorism are unacceptable
- They emphasised the inadmissibility of attempts to exploit terrorist, separatist, and extremist groups for mercenary purposes
- A new Universal Centre for Countering Security Challenges and Threats was established — with regulations formally adopted at Bishkek
On Narco-Terrorism (Direct Relevance to India):
- Leaders finalised regulations on the Executive Committee of the SCO Anti-Narcotics Centre, supporting India’s efforts against cross-border narcotics trafficking and narco-terrorism while facilitating inter-agency coordination
- Programs against drug addiction and synthetic narcotics were adopted
English as Official SCO Language (India’s Institutional Win):
- Leaders agreed to adopt English as an official SCO language — a longstanding Indian demand that finally found acceptance at Bishkek. Previously only Chinese and Russian were official languages, systematically disadvantaging India in SCO documentation and deliberations
- The Charter of the SCO was formally amended via a Protocol adopted at the summit
On Connectivity:
- An action plan for the development of ports and logistics centres of SCO member countries for 2026–2030 was signed
- Cooperation program on energy systems adopted
- Declaration on strengthening multilateral partnership for nuclear and physical nuclear security signed
On Technology and AI:
- Governments signed a Memorandum on cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence, allowing India to share its digital and AI experience, promote responsible and inclusive use of AI, and expand technology partnerships
- A 2026–2028 international information-security plan and a concept for regional data processing were adopted
- Memorandum on information cooperation for wider dissemination of India’s perspectives within regional media signed
India’s Cultural Initiatives Included:
- The declaration adopted India’s priorities: Civilisation Dialogue Forum, Young Scientist Forum, and Young Author’s Conclave
- The declaration reaffirmed the idea of “One Earth, One Family, One Future” for developing dialogue
On Geopolitics:
- The Bishkek Declaration opposed “unilateral coercive” sanctions which negatively impact the global economy, and expressed support for Iran’s sovereignty
- Member states said they supported an open, transparent, fair, inclusive, and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system
- Member countries stated they would continue to “develop practical dialogue on strengthening financial cooperation within the SCO Interbank Consortium” — this amid US pressure against trade with Iran
- The Declaration did not mention the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It covered other conflicts including West Asia
India-Pakistan at Bishkek:
One of the enduring awkwardnesses of India’s SCO membership is that it shares the same table as Pakistan. At Bishkek, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was present. No bilateral meeting between PM Modi and Sharif was announced or held — in keeping with India’s consistent policy since the Pahalgam attack that diplomacy and cross-border terrorism cannot coexist. The two leaders addressed the same plenary session within hours of each other, making pointed statements that everyone in the room understood to be directed at the other without the other being named.
India’s position at Bishkek was that terrorism cannot be a strategic asset — and that an organisation which includes both a victim of cross-border terrorism and the state accused of sponsoring it must be explicit about which side it stands on. The Bishkek Declaration’s language on “double standards” in counter-terrorism and its specific provisions for the SCO Anti-Narcotics Centre were India’s clearest wins on this front: multilateral language that, while not naming Pakistan directly, clearly supports the position India has held for years.
Lahore was named the SCO Tourism and Cultural Capital for 2026–27 — Pakistan’s own symbolic gain from Bishkek, coming as it takes over the rotating chairmanship. India raised no objection.
The next SCO summit will be held in Islamabad in 2027. India will attend. India and Pakistan will again sit at the same table. That is what multilateral diplomacy — uncomfortable, imperfect, and occasionally useful — looks like.
India-China at Bishkek: No Bilateral, But a Handshake
A bilateral meeting between PM Modi and Xi Jinping could not take place on the margins of the Bishkek Summit, but a video of the PM, Russian President Putin, and Xi shaking hands before the leaders’ photograph was the highlight of the day — a moment that signalled a normalisation of optics, if not yet of the underlying bilateral tensions over the LAC and broader strategic competition.
Both Putin and Xi were separately scheduled to be in New Delhi for the BRICS summit on September 12–13 — meaning Bishkek was the pre-meeting before the meeting. India’s relationship with China within the SCO has always been managed rather than warm: the two countries are simultaneously SCO members and strategic rivals whose troops faced off at Galwan Valley in 2020. But the SCO gives India visibility into Chinese-led Eurasian architecture — and gives India a platform to ensure its voice is heard in discussions that would otherwise proceed without it.
What India Actually Gained — and What Remains Unresolved
The wins at Bishkek are real. English as an official SCO language is a structural change that will improve India’s institutional participation for years. The anti-terror language — specifically the “double standards are unacceptable” formulation — is the kind of declaratory commitment that India has sought for years and can now point to in international forums.
The Anti-Narcotics Centre regulations directly address a cross-border threat that has long been a security priority. The AI cooperation MoU and the disaster relief cooperation agreement expand India’s bilateral footprint within the bloc. The Civilizational Dialogue Forum, if it materialises, gives India a platform to project its soft power credentials in a region where China has historically dominated cultural diplomacy.
What remains unresolved is the bigger question: can India use the SCO to achieve strategic connectivity to Central Asia?
India’s land access to Central Asia — its most immediate economic opportunity in the SCO region — remains blocked by Pakistan’s refusal to allow trade transit. The Chabahar-INSTC route via Iran is a partial workaround, but it is more expensive and slower than a land corridor through Pakistan would be. Until that changes, India’s engagement with Central Asia will remain below its potential, regardless of how many SCO declarations it signs.
India faces a “dilemma of engagement” — how to participate meaningfully in a body designed by and for China and Russia, without legitimising positions that directly contradict India’s own interests. Bishkek did not resolve that dilemma. But it demonstrated that engaged participation, specific demands, and consistent pressure can extract real outcomes from multilateral forums — even deeply imperfect ones.
In 2027, the SCO summit will be in Islamabad. Pakistan will chair the organisation that India joined largely to keep an eye on the region — and on Pakistan.
That is what multilateral diplomacy looks like when it works badly enough to continue and well enough to be worth continuing. For India, after Bishkek, continuing is clearly the right call.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.