07 Feb, 2009   ·    Ed. Rajesh M. Basrur & Mallika Joseph

About the Book

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.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Bringing Human Security: Back into South Asia
Rajesh M. Basrur

2. Pakistan: Small Arms proliferation
Salma Malik

3. Nepal: The Political Economy of Turbulence
Nishchal N. Pandey

4. India: Leftwing Extremism
Mallika Joseph

5. Sri Lanka: Tsunami, Poverty and Ethnic conflict
Jeevan Thiagarajah

6. Bangladesh: Post-conflict Peace-building
A.K.M. Abdus Sabur

About the Editors

Rajesh M. Basrur is Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Earlier, he was Director, Centre for Global Studies, Mumbai, India (2000-2007) and taught History and Politics at the University of Mumbai (1978-2000). He has engaged in post-doctoral research at RSIS (2006-07), Stanford University (2002-2003), Sandia National Laboratories (2002), the Brookings Institution (2001-2002), the Henry L. Stimson Center (2001), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1995-96), and Simon Fraser University (1994).

Mallika Joseph is Deputy Director at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. She  researches on various issues relating to South Asian security. In particular, she works on security sector reforms and has worked with the DFID on a study on Security Sector Reforms in Asia. In 2007 and in 2006, she was part of the DFID high-level technical team that offered consultancy for broad based SSR engagement in Guyana. Her areas of interests include security sector reforms, international terrorism, Left Extremism, improvised explosive devices, small arms and light weapons. She has also co-edited Reintroducing Human Security in South Asia, Consolidating Peace in Jammu and Kashmir, Terrorism and its repercussions on International Politics and Missing Boundaries: Refugees, Migrants, Stateless and Internally Displaced Persons in South Asia.

Ed. Rajesh M. Basrur & Mallika Joseph
Institue of Peace and Conflict studies

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