Human Security in South Asia: Characterizing Traditional and Non-traditional Security Threats

Abstract

An idea of ‗Human security‘, as a people-centred issue, is concerned not only with the comprehensive protection of individuals from multifaceted and diverse political, economic, and social challenges but also includes the daily and personal dilemmas that pose a threat to their dignity, development and self-fulfilment. Along with its external scopes, therefore, an inward configuration of this idea is potentially significant for considering the security issues in densely populated regions like South Asia. Mostly, South Asian region comprises of low-middle and low-income countries that have less percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) contribution at the global level. Due to regional powers‘ inclination towards maintaining traditional state-centric security paradigm, less attention is being given to human development and empowerment, whereas the mass share of the budget is reserved for ensuring impregnable defence mechanism. Consequently, an internal crisis such as hunger, poverty, economic disparity, the influx of refugees and internally displaced persons, extremist outfits, rampant corruption, lack of education and scientific innovation, sanitation and healthcare problems which are experienced by the vast majority of South Asian population are not addressed by their respective governments. Therefore, this paper attempts to draw the attention of the concerned states‘ to the existence of this large scale discrepancy between human development and the long-held traditional perceptions of security dynamics by proposing to keep the people alive by ensuring their physical safety or giving them a high level of living standards. This study strongly recommends the regional states to realize that non-traditional security threats like food security, environment protection, water storage, health facilities, education and justice for all are more relevant to address by investing heavily in human development and promoting well-being of the people rather than ensuring to safeguard humans from the soldiers of the enemy.