01 June 2007
Reintroducing the Human Security Debate in South Asia
South Asia, with its immense human security deficit, compounded by inter-state tensions and the consequent diversion of human and financial resources from people’s needs to states’ preferences, urgently requires a change in mindset. When the peoples of the region obtained independence from colonial domination, human security was the overarching norm. The great hope was that freedom would bring them broad-based security and opportunities for self-development. Some six decades later, those hopes remain unrealized to a large degree. While large numbers of people remain mired in poverty and insecurity, the political orientation of elites has slid into an overwhelming preoccupation with state security.
This volume is an attempt to redress the balance. Its thrust is to bring human security back to centre stage and to highlight the problems and needs of the people of the subcontinent.
South Asia, with its immense human security deficit, compounded by inter-state tensions and the consequent diversion of human and financial resources from people’s needs to states’ preferences, urgently requires a change in mindset. When the peoples of the region obtained independence from colonial domination, human security was the overarching norm. The great hope was that freedom would bring them broad-based security and opportunities for self-development. Some six decades later, those hopes remain unrealized to a large degree. While large numbers of people remain mired in poverty and insecurity, the political orientation of elites has slid into an overwhelming preoccupation with state security.
This volume is an attempt to redress the balance. Its thrust is to bring human security back to centre stage and to highlight the problems and needs of the people of the subcontinent.
