Remembering Sushma Swaraj: An Indian Woman Leader for the Ages

There are many ways to eulogize the recently deceased Sushma Swaraj, the former Indian minister of external affairs. Perhaps the most fitting image that comes to mind is how she traversed miles across the globe and achieved great distances in Indian diplomacy all in her 9-yard sari — the quintessential 9-yard sari.

Swaraj was a woman of many firsts. At the age of 25, she was the youngest cabinet minister in the Haryana government. She later became the first woman chief minister of Delhi, the first woman spokesperson for any national political party in the country, first woman leader of the opposition, and the first woman external affairs minister to a complete a full five-year term. She remains the only female MP in India to be honored with the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award.

As one of the key veterans of the Bharatiya Janata Party, she was set up to get a key portfolio when the Narendra Modi-led party stormed to a landslide victory in 2014. Sure enough, Swaraj was assigned the corner office in New Delhi’s famed South Block as the minister of external affairs.

There was a sense of uncertainty back then regarding what India’s foreign policy would look like under Modi, the supposedly inward-looking former chief minister of Gujarat. But Modi effectively rebranded himself as the global…