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The defence mechanism
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At a recent seminar on "Comprehensive Security in India: Issues and Concerns", the issue of non-traditional security was among the several topics discussed.
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THE RECOGNITION of the post Cold War world that the demands of increased defence expenditure at the cost of social and human development have had a negative impact on the stability of the state and that the strength of its social fabric and its economic resilience have a direct influence on individual security, has opened up a new perspective from which to view the idea of security. The Delhi Policy Group, New Delhi, and the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, University of Madras, recently organised a seminar on "Comprehensive Security in India: Issues and Concerns", evaluating issues of non-traditional security, examining the social dimensions of conflict and their mitigation.
The traditional understanding of security focusses on a state-centric defence system against an external enemy by comprehensive security and addresses ethnic, sectarian, regional conflicts, problems of demographic explosion, refugees, migration and their impact on the state machinery; issues of environmental degradation, climatic change, scarcity in food and resources, fringe groups and their political exploitation, effectiveness of the state's role in conflict management in terms of reactive or proactive responses as all these elements influence the individual's perception of security.
The imperative, therefore, is to balance the demands of military security with the equally important non-traditional issues, which impact on the citizen's sense of security and well-being.
R.N. Swarup, professor and chair, Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, University of Madras, in his welcome address, said comprehensive security or holistic security is not the absence of violence but the prevalence of a climate where the needs of society are taken care of and that in a globalised world this has to be essentially collective and collaborative. General V.S.Raghavan, Director, Delhi Policy Group, described the DPG as the only think tank in South Asia supported by a business house and as such an autonomous entity with a unique voice. The seminar was organised as a follow-up to the comprehensive security dialogue, a South Asian programme held this past year in New Delhi.
In his inaugural address, Prof M. Anandakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor, Anna University, gave an excellent overview of the subject and listed political stability, knowledge security, the absence of economic stagnation and social unrest (mutually influencing each other) as the four factors that make for comprehensive security.
In a technology-driven world, inadequacy or dependency on other countries could increase vulnerability and therefore intelligent participation in the global system must be carefully worked out, he stressed.
There were presentations and discussion in the "Comprehensive Nature of Security" by General Raghavan, Prof. S.D.Muni and Lawrence Prabhakar with B.S. Raghavan in the Chair and a lively participation from an invited audience of academics, officers of the Armed Forces, journalists, doctors and activists, who really opened up the discourse.
The post-lunch session was on the "Non-Military Dimensions on Security" with presentations by T. Ananthachari, Geetha Madhavan, advocate and Lalitha Kumaramangalam, with M.K. Narayanan, director, ECASPIL, in the Chair. Gopalji Malviya proposed a vote of thanks.
Both sessions went into the internal fragility of our country, the need to control divisive forces and their exploitation, institutional failure, the changed nature of conflict and the limited and expensive nature of military response to conflict. The participants brought experience from their spheres of activity to bear on the discussions. DPG's objective in exploring peoples' ideas of security by reaching out to them and of increasing public awareness on the subject was well served but it also emphasised the fact that more such colloquiums should be held to carry the idea forward and sustain the dialogue on a subject so crucial to the nation's well-being.
VISA RAVINDRAN
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