UNITED NATIONS, July 23: Former Indian diplomat Lakshmi Puri’s work has shown that empowering women is a crucial part of sustainable development and her debut novel reflects her deep belief in UN values and gender equality, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed has said.
Mohammed said Puri’s leadership as former UN Assistant Secretary General and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women has been crucial in integrating gender perspectives into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Puri’s “work shows that empowering women is not just a goal but a crucial part of sustainable development,” Mohammed said in a video message at a side event titled ‘Civilizational values and the UN: Women’s Resilience and Empowerment’ held in the UN Headquarters on Monday.
The side event featured a conversation with Puri, with a focus on her critically acclaimed debut novel ‘Swallowing the Sun’. A veteran diplomat and ambassador, Puri has also served the UN for 15 years in various leadership positions.
Mohammed said Puri’s novel “reflects her deep belief in UN values and gender equality. Drawing from personal historical stories, it resonates with the UN Charter’s purpose to help create a better world.”
Puri said her novel “very much encompasses all these themes of coming of age, an epic love story of young people and of their transformative youth power. It’s also very much, at its heart, about gender equality and women’s empowerment.”
In response to a question on what advice she would give to young women and girls, like the novel’s central character Malati, across the world, Puri said, “I would very much like to tell women and girls that they have to become these phenomenal women and claim their rights, be the self and subject in all circumstances and rise above their circumstances, break boundaries.
“It’s very important that as Malati is in the book, that they should be truth-seeking, justice-seeking because she’s not only acting for herself, but she is also empowering others,” Puri said.
President of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis highlighted Puri’s “long and distinguished career” as an Indian diplomat and as an international civil servant.
Pointing to the ‘He For She’ pin he was wearing, Francis said it was not for tokenism. “This really is the way I feel. It is of little consequence and in fact, not in the interest of society or the economy that half the population should not be allowed to make the fulsome and comprehensive contribution that they can make to our modern civilisation.”
Francis underlined that women are doing extraordinary things and they must be encouraged and supported towards making those contributions.
Puri has been a staunch supporter of the ‘He For She’ campaign, the UN global solidarity movement for gender equality that aims to engage men and boys as agents of change by encouraging them to take action against inequalities faced by girls and women.
The event was organised by the Permanent Mission of Saint Lucia to the UN in cooperation with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), Diwali Foundation USA and UN Women; and support of the Permanent Mission of India to the UN.
Permanent Representative of Saint Lucia to the UN Menissa Rambally said the world today is experiencing times like never before. “We continue to witness widening divisions….Especially given the reality around us, fostering a genuine culture of peace and promoting understanding between civilisations is a collective responsibility, both at the community level and for member states.”
She added that the collective efforts of member states cannot succeed without the active participation of women.
“It is therefore timely to reflect on civilisational values and what role the UN can play in bringing people together to find solutions that move beyond our challenges and to advance initiatives for better quality of life, no matter where you’re from on this planet,” she said.
Rambally said Puri’s contributions speak volumes and embody the essence of resilience and empowerment. Puri has used her “platform and made a career of seeking opportunities to support and empower women.”
The event also included video messages by UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous and UN Under-Secretary-General UNAOC High Representative Miguel Angel Moratinos.
A concept note for the event said that in her debut novel, Puri “brings her belief in the UN values of indestructibility of the human spirit, everything is a mission possible ethos and her convictions on gender equality and women’s empowerment.”
Puri draws from the stories of her “own remarkable feminist parents and grandfather, and of a generation of young people who rose above their enslaved, colonised condition to reimagine and rebuild their societies and country and drew upon the soul-force of the civilisational awakening and cultural renaissance,” it said. (PTI)
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