Discussants: Dr Sudha Pai, Gopi Arora, Dr Varun Sahni

PR Chari

Studies on alternative approaches to security are a core interest of IPCS and an element of its original charter drafted in 1996. Indeed, the very first project undertaken by IPCS was titled Developing a New Paradigm for National Security (edited by P.R. Chari, New Delhi: Manohar, 1999). IPCS has subsequently been involved in finalising a RCSS volume titled Security and Governance in South Asia (P.R. Chari, (ed) New Delhi: Manohar, 2001). IPCS has also undertaken studies on related subjects like human security, migration issues, and energy security, and hopes to continue this research activity despite the scarcity of funding.

Two points need to be made about the monographs in this volume. First, there is no dearth of studies on identity, governance, and non-military security threats, but the challenge in these monographs was to identify the nature of their dangers to national security, and suggest policy measures for their amelioration. Second, efforts to define security enter contested territory. The state remains the primary unit of reference, either as a threat to security or the victim of security threats. Military security remains the touchstone of national security. However, these perceptions no longer reflect current realities. Threats to national security have become more diffuse and varied non-state actors have become important, and the individual's security is often more significant than the security of the state. Taken together, these threats suggest that an alternative, non-military approach to national security appears more relevant to address these dangers, and this is what has been attempted in these monographs.

Sudha Pai on R Radhakrishnan's monograph "Challenges to National Integrity."

The monograph recommends what issues should be the focus of challenges to national integration. However, it needs to examine the meaning of the concept of national integration. There should be more discussion on how the term has been used in other literature, what kind of integration should occur, what would national integration look like, and the necessity of addressing differences to achieve national unity.

Much of the research on national integration is based on the 1960s work on modernisation, which argues that in newly emerging states provincial identities would disappear, and an identity based on national citizenship would emerge. This notion is no longer acceptable in the West due to the new emphasis on the rights of groups. In India, the Nehruvian concept of national integration was that Indian identity would accept, in a secular manner, the numerous identities in India, but this idea has been challenged by sectarian and caste divisions, etc. The Scheduled Castes have also challenged this concept, claiming that it marginalises them; what they are addressing is what kind of integration should be occurring and how integration should occur, rather than whether or not integration should occur.

A major challenge to national integration is ethnicity, and the monograph focuses on ethnicity and national integration in the Northeast, focusing on deprivation and grievances between indigenous and non-indigenous communities. But it could have analysed several other issues, such as how the Northeast feels connected - or not - to the rest of India and how this impacts the region's integration with rest of India. The monograph could also have examined disputes within and between the Northeast states over boundaries and integration, conflicts between tribal groups, and intra-community conflicts within smaller social groups. Clearly, differences between indigenous and non-indigenous communities predominate, but the Northeast's identity crises are more complex and are not based on ethnicity alone, but on a plethora of problems. Further, the author could have examined constitutional innovations that have reduced these problems, like in Mizoram.

Clearly, colonialism led to communal divisions, but why did communal differences and conflict become so acute in the 1990s? This was possibly because of economic crises and the collapse of the Nehruvian consensus on secularism. It may be helpful to examine how political parties have contributed to increasing communalism, and how political parties utilise identity politics for their support.

Finally, the monograph needs to examine regionalism versus nationalism in terms of national identity, i.e. the role of secessionism. It could have examined how transboundary issues in South Asia affect identity politics in India, and address not only the problems of national integration like communalism - but also why they exist.

Gopi Arora on Aisha Sultanat's monograph "Governance and Security."

This volume is path breaking in some ways, and IPCS deserves credit for studying these subjects and training scholars to study them. The key concept in this chapter is the erosion of the Indian state due to communalism, corruption, and similar problems.

However, national integration cannot address problems of governance and security. Historically, security has often been influenced by social, economic, and other institutions, and not only by government institutions. Clearly, governance influences these institutions, and can draw upon these institutions to protect national sovereignty. But these institutions also influence governance and security.

The factors that affect governance in India are not wholly internal to India. Governance emerged in significance in the discourse after the fall of the Berlin Wall and an increased interest in failing and disappearing states. It is commonly argued that if a country does not have certain institutions like market economies, then the country will have bad governance, which is seen as the panacea to solve all national problems. However, beliefs that particular models of democracy and free markets connote good governance are often influenced by the World Bank and other international institutions that have tremendous leverage. Thus, we also need to look at the international dimensions of governance.

Some additional areas that can be explored include examining the issues of national integration in other South Asian countries, which has not been examined. Furthermore, when examining alternative security, it is helpful not to look at what security is, but also how it can be achieved. Governments often place greater emphasis on meeting statistical targets rather than examining how those targets were achieved. In India, reservations are seen as a panacea for improving social and economic equality, and reservation is based on the idea that economic development would erode social segmentation, as between castes. Reservations have not had this effect, and the question arises how India can be more socially inclusive.

Varun Sahni on Prafulla Ketkar's monograph "Non-Military Challenges to Security."

Prafulla focuses on non-military security challenges, but these are more complicated than discussed in the monograph. For example, population movements are sometimes regulated by states and sometimes not; thus a discussion on population movements should clearly focus on unregulated population movements.

The monograph treats alternative security threats as national problems, but many of them are rooted in globalisation. The work only refers to this, and should define globalisation and examine its consequences. Crime, for example, has transnational security linkages, and these linkages are what makes international crime a challenge to national security.

Agent-structure linkages also need to be examined in analyses of alternative security threats. Agency is strong in some issues, such as crime and terrorism, and some issues are partly agent driven and partly structural, such as environmental degradation.

A suggestion made is that several other issues should be considered security threats, like epidemics, and another suggestion is to redefine security itself. We have been moving from military insecurities to other types of insecurities, and this can be considered as a "broadening process" to examine security. We should also move away from considering security threats to the state to other referent objects. A third process occurring is sectorialisation or ghettoisation, in which different areas of security are being cordoned off and examined separately but not holistically. We could focus on how security relates to this three-dimensional axis.

Discussion

The armed forces can be considered a model for national integration, because there are no caste, regional, or other differences among personnel in the armed forces. Religious institutions are treated similarly, and officers worship together. Soldiers give their lives for each other regardless of their sectarian differences.

A question now arising is how to prioritise security threats based on the time and resources available to address them. Also, individual rights are being seen as paramount. If we accept this, issues of governance, national integration, etc will receive less attention than how individuals can satisfied and their aspirations addressed.

India has treated the Northeast as a security issue from the very beginning. Sardar Patel argued that a military solution must be found because people inhabiting the Northeast had not developed a sense of loyalty to the Indian nation. However, the rest of India has seen the Northeast as a "frontier" and its people as being inherently different. This approach has endured because the Northeast is not regarded as being part of India.

Several other issues are being added to concepts of security, and this complexity creates difficulties for policy makers who are not used to prioritising. Maybe we need to get used to seeing security as a complex problem in need of innovative solutions.

After September 11, is this the right time to talk about new concepts of security? When expanding our concepts of security, what about the state becoming a source of insecurity? What are the actors, other than the state, that should provide security? Finally, some security threats arise for the victims of security efforts - such as migrants. They are often victims of state policies, and upon migration are seen as security threats to other states. September 11 conflated the state and human security concepts, perhaps incorrectly. However, security requires clarity, which we do not have at present.

Author responses

Radhakrishnan agreed with Dr Pai on the increasing problems of caste identity. He also suggested that the state is seen as source of empowerment. Thus people attempt to capture the state to empower and secure themselves.

Ketkar agreed with Dr Sahni that he should have placed more emphasis on globalisation and agent-structure linkages, and that he could have discussed a greater number of alternative security threats. However, he felt he that could not have discussed every possible security threat, and he felt that it was necessary to place security threats in the context of globalisation. In the end, he agreed that his research could be enhanced by adopting these suggestions.

PR Chari

Much of what has been discussed needs to be considered within a matrix of concepts and global linkages. We should also consider how regional and global problems are linked with local institutions, and we need to be able to prioritise security matters in practical manner for practicable policy.