Former Deputy Executive Director of UN Women and Inspiring Author Lakshmi Puri Shares Journey in Championing Global Gender Equality

“For the last 15 years, I have served in the UN—first at UNCTAD and later as UN Assistant Secretary General, steering the first-ever global organization to promote gender equality, UN Women, for seven foundational years—the culmination of my life’s passionately felt mission.” We are honored to share the inspiring story of today’s woman dreamer, Lakshmi Puri. An accomplished diplomat, UN ambassador, and author, Lakshmi is a trailblazer for global women’s equality. She was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Prize for Human Rights for her pioneering work with the UN in advancing a dedicated SDG 5 for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. In this interview with Women Who Win, she also reflects on her journey in writing her book, Swallowing the Sun. She states, “We still live and endeavor to do better in an imperfect world, and much remains for our younger generation to take up as essential causes and power on, just as the young people in my novel Swallowing the Sun do." Enjoy!

1. You are an accomplished diplomat and ambassador, and you were awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Prize for Human Rights for your pioneering work with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, including helping evolve a dedicated SDG 5 for "gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls." How did your own background and upbringing inspire your work with the UN and your career journey as an advocate for global gender equality?

I was privileged to be born to extraordinary parents—BG Murdeshwar, who helped write the Constitution of India, and Malati Desai, a pioneering educationist. They were iconoclasts, feminists, and ahead of their time in their beliefs and in their life and work. They were freedom fighters, philosophers, spiritual seekers, social reformers, and upholders of the civilizational values of justice and equality—especially gender equality. They reimagined a free and resurgent India and affirmed the idea of the perfectibility of humanity. This inspired me to join the Indian Foreign Service to advance India’s interests in the world as a force for good. For the last 15 years, I have served in the UN—first at UNCTAD and later as UN Assistant Secretary General, steering the first-ever global organization to promote gender equality, UN Women, for seven foundational years—the culmination of my life’s passionately felt mission.

2. You recently published a bestseller and a critically acclaimed novel, Swallowing the Sun, which dives into a stunning exploration of India's struggle for independence through the eyes of three generations of women. What is the lesson you want readers to take from each of the three generations?

Although this is a historical novel set in the first five decades of the 20th century during the British Raj, my readers recognize themselves across time and space in the three generations of women portrayed in my novel. There are women like Ayee, the matriarchs of villages like Champatai, Ajibai, and the “divinely mad” MaaSaheb, who accept their status as children of a lesser goddess and bow to, or even perpetuate, patriarchy. Then, in the second generation, there are a number of women characters led by the feisty Malati, who, like the ants in the woman saint Muktabai’s surreal verse, dare to fly into the sky and try to swallow the sun, whether they meet with triumph or disaster. They are Maya Angelou’s phenomenal women—rising above the bounds of their circumstances to try to metamorphose into someone extraordinary: lawyer, freedom fighter, revolutionary, rider, and hunter. Veena, the rebel film actress, is the third generation—akin to Toni Morrison’s outlaw women, challenging patriarchal norms in extremis. All three hold enduring lessons on women’s empowerment and resilience for women and girls not only in India but globally—that every woman can be and do anything she sets her mind to, that every place is a woman’s place.

3. Which character in the book do you feel you relate to most? Did you draw on any of your own life stories or experiences in writing the book?

I have a vast and varied cast of characters in what critics have called an incredible saga with an epic sweep. The novel takes cues from the life story of my parents. So, Malati, her lover Guru, and Malati’s enlightened father Baba are figures drawn from real life, but the trajectory of their lives is not exactly the same since this is fiction. Others are mostly characters spun out of the thin air of imagination, creatures of the many epiphanies a writer must be blessed to wake up to and interpret! I don’t play favorites among my characters, as all are equally beloved to me as their creator.

4. You are also the wife of the well-known cabinet minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the current Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas. What role has male allyship played in your life, and how have you supported each other's work?

My husband and soulmate Hardeep has been a true champion of women’s rights—one who lived up to the idea of UN Women’s HeForShe. We are a diplomatic “tandem couple,” so over the years, we have had to adjust our careers and family life with empathy and solidarity, even as we perpetually wandered across the globe. I have been back in India to be there for him in his political avatar, as he has been for me always. I even credit him with encouraging me to finish my novel during the existential COVID years.

5. Through your global diplomacy career, you have met so many incredible people around the world. Did you have any mentors or role models who inspired you?

One of the greatest merits of being in diplomacy is the opportunity to meet the most accomplished leaders—the crème de la crème of thought and achievement in different fields: politics, media, academia, culture, literature, and sports. So it’s very difficult to choose just one person. Meeting and working with my hero Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon, as well as Michelle Bachelet, former two-time President of Chile, and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, former VP of South Africa, on the UN Women global project, was particularly exhilarating.

6. When reflecting on your career, what do you believe will be the most lasting legacy of your work? How do you hope future generations will build on your work?

I have had the privilege of contributing to the UN’s projects for humanity, which India also supports as part of its Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam ethos. These include peace and security, sustainable development and climate action, human rights and democracy, humanitarian and disaster response, and reaping the technology dividend. I have particularly enabled the adoption of a veritable Global Compact on gender equality among member states in these areas and at all levels—global, regional, national, and local. But we still live and endeavor to do better in an imperfect world, and much remains for our younger generation to take up as essential causes and power on, just as the young people in my novel Swallowing the Sun do.

Thank you for sharing your inspiring story with us! We are honored to have you in our global women’s network!

Bio: Lakshmi Puri was the youngest entrant into the Indian Foreign Service. After representing India abroad in key bilateral and multilateral diplomatic assignments for 28 years, including as Ambassador to Hungary and Bosnia Herzegovina, she served at the United Nations for 15 years in various leadership capacities: as Director of the flagship International Trade Division of UNCTAD, later as Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, and as the founding Deputy Executive Director of UNWOMEN. She thus contributed to the UN's major projects on peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, human rights, and humanitarian action. She is a recipient of the prestigious Eleanor Roosevelt Prize for Human Rights, among others.  She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Indian Association of International Studies (IAIS) and  a visiting professor at the South Asian University, New Delhi.  Lakshmi Puri is the author of a novel “Swallowing the Sun” which has won universal critical acclaim and become a National Bestseller in record time.