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Understanding security:
A new perspective
There have also been feminist, Marxist , social constructivist, and even post modern challenges to state-centric analyses. In this slim volume, noted sociologist T.K. Oommen takes up the search for comprehensive security, and comes up with an extremely useful way of tackling the subject. He judiciously avoiding extremes of position, and makes sure that conceptual clarity and intellectual rigour are not sacrificed in ideological smog. The book is a product of Delhi Policy Group project, with Oommen holding the Chair on Non-Traditional security. Recent events on the international stage have pushed analysts to continuously refine their concepts. As Lt. Gen V.R. Raghavan states in his foreword: "That peoples in a state can be vulnerable to military threats even though the state is not at war is a condition that defies the traditional meaning of security". Rejecting the "notoriously sterile" dichotomies of the realist vs liberal debates, Oomen advocates first the notion of a continuum, moving from the one dimensional to the multidimensional, with security as a "conjoint concern of the three pillars of state, market and civil society". While broadening the concept, state security cannot be lost sight of, he stresses: "we need to recognise the fact that to provide security to individuals and communities, the territorial integrity of the state is often a pre-requisite in so far as the present political arrangement geared to sovereign states continues." Particularly thought provoking is the conceptualisation of three forms of violence which cause insecurity – the physical, the structural (where the market, state, or civil society controls people’s lives), and the symbolic (cultural and ideological stigmatisation). Acknowledging the temptation for a catch-all definition of security, he limits the concept to include only dangers coming from human agency. That itself, of course, makes for a broad canvas. "I suggest that an analysis of the three ‘cides’ – genocide, culturocide and ecocide – will provide an optimal view of security," he states. While genocide is aimed at killing people, culturocide is aimed at identity and culture, while ecocide destroys the environment. The emphasis on security of identity and culture is particularly welcome, and is of great relevance in a plural society like that of India, with various communities competing for space if not dominance. The subject has a rich literature and writers like A. Margalit and J. Raz have emphasised the importance of identity to an individual’s sense of well-being. Issues that could perhaps have been examined in greater length include the question of whether the state is the sole provider of security as a good. There is also a "constructionist" bias in Oomen’s exposition, which makes him come up with sweeping statements like: "Today, the Jewish state of Israel, supported by the sole super power, is at the centre of the world. The erstwhile Jewish other has not only been de-stigmatised, but is now put on a high pedestal." Nationalism and ethnicity receive the necessary detailed treatment required while tackling such a subject, and there are sections looking at the historicity of security, colonialism, South Asia, governance, and the role of technology and values. He ends with a plea to combine "Western nominalism and eastern holism so that harmony between humanity and nature can be sustained." The language is academic and rigorous, but always lucid, and Oomen’s effort is a valuable contribution to the literature. It deserves widespread dissemination and discussion. |
AS a "strategic
studies" concept, security is about "national security",
a notion that not only places security of the modern state at the
centre, but privileges the state’s security over all else. Social
scientists have long sought to extricate security from these
State-centric, "realist" and ‘neo-realist" approaches.
The liberal critique, which sought to emphasise the role of civil
society and the markets, succeeded in humanising the concept.