Breaking Barriers for Social Transformation: Dr. Hansa Mehta’s Inspiring Life”

Your Excellency Ambassador Harish, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations,

Excellencies,

Colleagues,

And friends

I extend my sincere gratitude to the Permanent Mission of India for organizing this important event. 

And for inviting me to deliver this address in honour of I must say, a true icon, not only for India, but for women all around the world, Dr Hansa Mehta.

Her legacy lives on in the foundational principles she helped etch into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“That all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

That achievement alone secures her place in history.

Not least because those principles still guide the work of multilateralism seventy-seven years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and eighty years after the adoption of the United Nations Charter.

Yet her significance extends beyond this single celebrated intervention.

The example she set offers broader lessons about what can be achieved:

Through steadfast commitment to principle.

Through resolve and persistence in the pursuit of justice and equality. 

And through recognition of the profound impact one can have when given opportunity; and conversely, the cost of denying opportunity to half of humanity.

These are the three lessons I wish to draw from her life today in my keynote speech.

The first lesson is the importance of holding firm to principle – which in these, I would say, is more important than ever.

In 1947, a newly independent India sent Dr. Hansa Mehta to serve on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, where she helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

At an early stage, the opening article reflected what was then conventional phrasing on who was entitled to universal rights, referring simply to ‘men’. 

Many regarded the wording as unremarkable, as a shorthand for humanity.

They were frankly dismissive to Dr. Mehta’s objections that in societies where texts are read literally, masculine phrasing could narrow rights. 

Yet Dr. Mehta held her ground, understanding that language is not neutral.

It shapes interpretation. 

It influences law, policy, and social expectation. 

She persisted - and we all know how women who persist on something are treated these days - so that was not easy for her at all. 

She persisted until she secured a formulation that was unambiguous in who is entitled to dignity: 

Not just men. 

But all human beings are born free and equal and dignity. 

A small change on the page but one with monumental consequences. 

Today, we understand far more clearly the importance of gender inclusive language, a principle that Member States have repeatedly reaffirmed in the work of this Organization.

But we know in some texts it took us more than 70 years and there are still texts where we haven’t succeeded.

But language shapes expectation.

 It signals who is imagined in positions of authority.

When titles such as Chairman are used instead of Chair, or when offices such as Secretary General or President of the General Assembly are spoken of as though they naturally belong to men, the message travels quietly but powerfully: leadership is assumed to be male.

And I was once in a talk show where I discussed that intensively, because in the German language there is a clear difference if you use the male, or female, or the neutral definition. 

And a high-ranking male politician was arguing that this is nitty gritty and not the most important thing. 

And I told him: but what would have been the case if you had been asked by a TV news agency to come to an event where female leaders were being invited? Would he even answer this request?

And he said, well, obviously not, because I am not female.

And you still see these days that this idea, in Germany you say mitgemeint, that we also mean you if we take the so called male version or the neutral version, that this obviously does not belong to the other part of society, which always wants to be addressed as what they are.

Because if they are men, they want to be addressed as male politicians.

So each time institutional language is reviewed, and each time gendered assumptions are corrected before a text is adopted, we see the continuing influence of her intervention… 

…building on the foundational premise that universal rights apply universally.

And today whenever conversations regarding standing up for equality and women’s rights are dismissed as so called ‘woke’, we should remind ourselves of Hansa Mehta, that she did not change that text 8 years ago but almost 80 years ago. 

Women’s rights are nothing new. 

They have been embedded in the DNA of our United Nations from the very beginning.

Yet Dr. Mehta did not regard this intervention as the culmination of the struggle for gender equality alone, or for social justice more broadly. 

She understood it as part of an ongoing process, which brings me to my second point: 

That the pursuit of equality is continuous for the whole society, and not only for half of it.

Throughout her life she remained a powerful voice for women’s empowerment, especially in the sphere of education. 

As one example, in1962, as Chair of India’s National Council for Women’s Education, she rejected the notion of a supposed “female aptitude” that would merit a narrower school curriculum for girls. 

She understood that when a society prescribes smaller horizons for girls, it diminishes its own society’s future. 

Consider that even as we look ahead to the seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, and thirty years after the Beijing Platform for Action set out a global commitment to gender equality, the distance still to travel is unfortunately far. 

In some places, progress has stalled or even reversed. 

This is perhaps most stark in Afghanistan today, where girls are barred from secondary education, and women are excluded from higher education altogether, and indeed from total public life at a scale. 

Some, I would say, rightly describe it as gender apartheid.

Elsewhere, progress once thought secure is under strain. 

Women still enjoy only about two thirds of the legal rights available to men worldwide, and no country has yet achieved full legal equality. 

Even where laws exist, implementation often lags behind promise.

Political and economic leadership remains overwhelmingly male. 

Only twenty-nine countries today are led by women serving as Heads of State or Government.

And we all know that our own organization after 80 years still lags behind in that the position of Secretary General has yet to be held by a woman - despite generations of capable candidates.

Meanwhile, new frontiers bring new risks.

Advances in digital technology and artificial intelligence promise transformation, yet women remain less likely to have equal access to digital tools. 

These same technologies are increasingly used in ways that target women precisely. 

Studies indicate that approximately ninety-six percent of non-consensual deepfake pornography depicts women - so this is no coincidence. 

This is structural and it is on purpose, to degrade women if needed. 

These realities differ across geography and context, yet they point to a shared truth.

The struggle that animated Hansa Mehta’s work continues 

In that spirit, I welcome India’s hosting of the second AI Impact Summit, which reflects a commitment to harnessing these technologies for inclusive and equitable development, 

And to advancing responsible artificial intelligence that protects rights, promotes safety, and ensures that innovation empowers women. 

And we should be reminded every day when we are working on these new AI regulations to hold our stand firmly, as Hansa Mehta once did. 

This brings me to the third lesson.

If just a single person can make such an immense difference, imagine how profoundly a society can transform when that opportunity is extended to all humanity.

Back in time, Hansa Mehta had to fight quite in isolation, not only here at the United Nations, but also in her own country, India, 

But she had the rare opportunity to be educated by her family, back when female literacy in India was extraordinarily low, only one to two percent.

So this was also a key driver of why she was fighting, not only for girls’ and women’s rights in theory, but for education for all, knowing that when this is denied, societies restrict their own progress.

So having this connection already back in time, that empowering women also makes societies and economies stronger, should be a clear reminder to ourselves again, when we speak in these times of CSW about deleting women’s rights because we should focus more, as some call it, on the “hard topics” in these times.

Women’s rights are among the hardest topics we can imagine.

And as the Ambassador mentioned, breaking barriers is never easy at all.

Because especially as a woman, if you want to propose something new, or you are really holding your ground, we all know how we are being called: sometimes naïve, sometimes difficult, sometimes even crazy.

But as we know, in all parts of society, not only in politics, not only in the economy, but especially also in sports, if I may quote another female hero, Serena Williams: “You call me crazy, I show you what crazy can do.”

And Hansa Mehta was probably called crazy as well.

And yet what she achieved was astonishing.

And this should lead our upcoming discussions also here CSW, because we can be proud as women not only of the work of Hansa Mehta, but of what we are achieving every day.

And leading like a woman means leading for all humanity.

I thank you. 

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