nbr special report #34 | november 2011
nontraditional security challenges in india Human Security and Disaster Management TABLE OF CONTENTS
iii 1 9
Foreword Mahin Karim Human Security Challenges in India Mallika Joseph Challenges of Disaster Management in India: Implications for the Economic, Political, and Security Environments P.G. Dhar Chakrabarti
the national bureau
of
asian research
nbr special report #34 | november 2011
Human Security Challenges in India Mallika Joseph
is Deputy Director at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) in New Delhi, India. She is also on the UN Roster of Security Sector Reform Experts. Her recent publications include Reintroducing Human Security in South Asia (co-editor, 2007), “From Human Security Deficit to Crisis: The Issue of Left Extremism and Its Implications for India’s Internal Security” (2007), Terrorism and Its Repercussions on International Politics (co-editor, 2003), and Missing Boundaries: Refugees, Migrants, Stateless and Internally Displaced Persons in South Asia (co‑editor, 2003). She can be reached at . MALLIKA JOSEPH
1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay briefly analyzes the significant human security challenges that India faces today and identifies those that are likely to persist in 2025.
MAIN FINDINGS • While India is home to the world’s richest people, it is also home to the world’s poorest. This huge economic disparity will determine the status of human and national security in India in 2025. Advances in mass communication have contributed to a more integrated, interdependent, and informed polity that is unlikely to continue passively accepting such stark economic disparities. • Many policies in India continue to be driven by state-centric frameworks. While reforms are under way to make the government more accountable, transparent, and responsive to the needs of the people, the implementation of these reforms is undermined by high levels of corruption, the criminalization of politics, and weak institutions. • There is a lack of clear understanding about the elements of human insecurity that are manifest in India. When communities in India revolt as a result of their loss of dignity or access to land, the government views this only as a law-and-order problem that requires police action, rather than implementing responses that are as multidimensional as the causes themselves. • Chronic misgovernance and total administrative apathy for the developmental needs of marginalized communities have resulted in pockets of acute human security deficit. The rise in regional radicalization and the growing influence of left extremism, such as the Naxalite movement, are only symptoms of emerging disaffection with the government.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS • If India wishes to reap the future benefits of a vibrant economy, it must address the growing economic disparity in its population. The state of human security in India fifteen years from now will largely depend on its ability to close this gap. • Many of India’s human security concerns continue to be located within its institutions and structures, which are not easily or equally accessible to all its citizens. Unless India is able to develop social and political delivery systems that distribute the benefits of economic growth beyond the privileged few, the country’s potential to be a regional or global power will be limited. • Left extremism is likely to be one of the most serious challenges to Indian security in the forthcoming decade if the government does not address basic issues of governance and accountability.
A
ccording to a study of India’s economic prospects for this decade (2010–20), the country’s GDP will grow at an average annual rate of 9.6%, even in the absence of reforms.1 This is largely due to India’s savings rate and incremental capital output ratio (ICOR). As one author remarks, “There is virtually nothing that our leaders or any other sundry actors can do to prevent this.”2 Further, if attempts are made to change the status quo and initiate reforms, the potential for growth increases exponentially. Besides offering the promise of economic growth and favorable demography, this decade will be crucial in determining India’s power status in the global matrix and whether New Delhi can finally be a game changer in international politics. The critical question, however, is how many people in India will actually benefit from this growth? Will it reduce the level of poverty? Will it ensure better human security for India’s citizens? Despite the forecast of robust economic growth over the next ten years, 250 million people in India will continue to live in poverty as large populations remain dependent on a lethargic agricultural sector. While literacy levels will increase, in 2020 India will still only have 73 million college graduates.3 The country’s potential to maximize its demographic advantage will become a reality only if these trends are reversed. The state of human security in India in 2025 thus largely depends on how well India assesses its strengths and weaknesses and strategizes to address these challenges. The paradigm of human security has evolved considerably since its inception as an alternative to a traditional state-centric security framework. Despite the various arguments against the increasing securitization of socioeconomic concerns, human security today provides the moral fiber for many foreign policies, state actions, and international interventions. However, statecentric frameworks continue to drive Indian policymaking. Although reforms are under way that seek to make the government more accountable, transparent, and responsive to the needs of the people, implementing these reforms is challenging, given the high levels of corruption, the criminalization of politics, and weak institutions of governance. The problem is further accentuated by a lack of understanding of the elements of human insecurity that are manifest in India. Advocates of human security highlight “how both violence and physical safety are major concerns for the poor, often dominating their lives to a greater extent than income poverty.” 4 The poor define poverty in multidimensional ways that “encompass self-respect, autonomy, access to land, and so on, rather than income alone.”5 When affected communities in India revolt as a result of loss of dignity or access to land, the government is only able to view such unrest as a law-and-order problem that requires police action, rather than implementing responses that are as multidimensional as the causes themselves. Many of India’s human security concerns continue to be focused on the country’s social and political institutions and structures, which are not easily or equally accessible to all citizens. This is best explained by Patrick Hayden:
1 Saubhik
Chakrabarti, “Happy New Decade, India,” Indian Express, January 1, 2010.
2 Jaithirth
Rao, “Millennial Bharat, 2020 India,” Indian Express, January 1, 2010.
3 Chakrabarti,
“Happy New Decade, India.”
McIlwaine and Caroline Moser, “Poverty, Violence and Livelihood Security in Urban Colombia and Guatemala,” Progress in Development Studies 3, no. 2 (April 2003): 113.
4 Cathy
5 McIlwaine
and Moser, “Poverty, Violence and Livelihood Security,” 115.
HUMAN SECURITY CHALLENGES IN INDIA u JOSEPH
3
From the human security and peace approach, it is possible to expose some of the structural practices that are the source of threats to human security and violations of basic human rights. For example, a state might not formally be at war, whether externally or internally, but its social, cultural, and legal institutions may be structured according to discriminatory beliefs and policies that deny basic rights and access to education, employment, or health care to certain individuals. In cases where social practices deny education, housing, the opportunity to work or to participate in governance because of race, religion, sex, and so forth, great psychological, social, and economic harm is being done to human beings, even if bullets and bombs are not being used. 6
The institutionalized structural cleavages that block unfettered access to all goods and services constitute the principal challenge for India both today and in 2025: unless New Delhi is able to spread the benefits of economic growth and open up its institutions beyond the privileged few, the country’s potential to become a regional or global player will be in question. This essay will analyze the significant human security challenges that India faces today and identify those that are likely to persist in 2025.
Human Security Challenges in India in 2025 Notwithstanding favorable predictions of economic growth, India is still confronted by internal challenges that will have an impact on the country’s human security if basic issues of governance and accountability are not addressed. Left extremism, specifically in the form of violence perpetrated by Naxalites,7 is likely to be one of the most serious challenges to Indian security in the forthcoming decade. Chronic misgovernance and total administrative apathy for the developmental needs of marginalized communities have resulted in an acute human security deficit that in particular has been exploited by Naxalites purporting to support the cause of the downtrodden. The state’s counter-Naxalite strategies primarily have adopted a state-centric perspective and have failed to address the human security deficit that is the root cause of the violence. The situation has deteriorated to a level where even the state faces a security deficit. Additionally, there are signs that global trends in radicalization are now at play in India. Cleavages are growing more pronounced along religious, regional, and ethnic lines due to this radicalization process. With the promise of economic growth, India is also likely to witness an increase in organized criminal activity. The current trend of growing links between organized crime and terrorism, if it continues, is likely to pose a phenomenal challenge to the nation-state. While admittedly these are worst-case scenarios, they could become real if the government does not step in to arrest some of the most prominent negative drivers. Specifically, the human security situation in 2025 is likely to be determined by New Delhi’s ability to address the following three issues: uneven economic growth and distribution, corruption, and the lack of accountable institutions.
Hayden, “Constraining War: Human Security and the Human Right to Peace,” Human Rights Review 6, no. 1 (October–December 2004): 43.
6 Patrick 7 The
4
term “Naxalite” draws its origin from the armed peasant resistance against landlords that began in March 1967 in a small village called Naxalbari in the Indian state of West Bengal. Three sharecroppers and 150 members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), or CPI (ML), lifted the entire stock of grain from a landlord’s granary without giving him his share. This act signaled the birth of a new movement, and since then, all forms of armed struggle deriving from socioeconomic conditions have been called Naxalite. Other terms that are used to describe the movement are “left-wing extremism” and “radical Maoism.”
NBR SPECIAL REPORT u NOVEMBER 2011
the national bureau
of
asian research
nbr special report #34 | november 2011
Challenges of Disaster Management in India: Implications for the Economic, Political, and Security Environments P.G. Dhar Chakrabarti
P.G. DHAR CHAKRABARTI is the former Executive Director of the National Institute for Disaster Management in India and the former Director of the Disaster Management Centre of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) based in New Delhi. He has also served as a member of the Advisory Group of the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) as well as of expert groups of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). Dr. Chakrabarti is the author of several publications on disaster management and founding editor of two journals— Disaster and Development and Journal of South Asia Disaster Studies. He can be reached at .
9
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay examines the disaster management challenges in India and assesses the implications of those challenges for that country’s economic, political, and security environments.
MAIN FINDINGS • In the past two decades, India’s public policy on disaster management has shifted from a focus on relief and rehabilitation efforts to holistic management of disasters. This new policy approach incorporates pre-disaster issues of prevention, mitigation, and preparedness, as well as post-disaster issues of response, recovery, and reconstruction. • New initiatives, such as mainstreaming disaster risk reduction in development, building capacity through education and greater awareness at all levels, and utilizing advanced technologies, have enhanced India’s preparedness for each phase of disaster management. • Unsafe building practices in rapidly growing urban settlements constitute one of India’s greatest challenges for disaster management. A major earthquake in any of India’s densely and heavily populated cities in seismic zones would be catastrophic in terms of fatalities. • Climate change has far-reaching implications for managing disaster risk in India, as the frequency and intensity of flash floods, landslides, droughts, cyclones, and storm surges are expected to increase in upcoming decades.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS • While significant achievements have been made in post-disaster response and reconstruction, there are still formidable challenges to reducing the risk of future disasters. • Disaster management policies must incorporate programs to protect the most vulnerable segments of society—the poor, marginalized, women, children, disabled, and elderly. • Mechanisms must be designed and adopted for transferring lessons learned for pre- and post-disaster management between communities. • Given that natural disasters do not always follow national boundaries, cross-boundary issues of disaster management should be addressed through enhanced regional cooperation. Furthermore, an effective regional response system should be developed to pool capacity for mutual benefit.
T
he hazards of nature and the vulnerabilities of social, economic, and environmental conditions combine to make India one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world.1 Nearly 59% of India’s land mass is prone to earthquakes of varying magnitudes. The average frequency of earthquakes with a magnitude greater than seven is once every three and a half years. A sharp rise in population and unsafe building practices compound the risks of earthquakes, particularly in urban areas. About 8% of the geographical area of India, which is equivalent to 40 million hectares, is subject to riverine and flash floods. Nearly 60% of the net area sown in the country is prone to droughts—half of it critically so, with annual precipitation of less than 750 millimeters. India’s long coastline, nearly 8,000 kilometers, faces regular threats of cyclones, storm surges, and inundation both before and after the monsoon season. Nearly all of India’s one billion–plus people are exposed to one or more forms of natural disasters. About one-third of the population is critically affected due to residing in multi-hazard prone areas.2 Poor economic and social conditions make these people highly vulnerable to such hazards. The average number of annual deaths due to natural disasters in India is around 4,500 humans and 40,000 animals. Nearly 2.5 million houses are damaged and over 1.5 million hectares of standing crops are destroyed every year. Furthermore, damaged critical infrastructure poses serious threats to the manufacturing and marketing processes.3 According to the global database of disasters, India ranks third in the number of disaster events, second in the number of disaster victims, and fifth in economic damage due to natural disasters.4 A World Bank study pegs India’s annual loss due to disasters at close to 2.25% of GDP,5 and it is difficult to make equivalent resources available for public health or education. The high rate of natural disasters is compounded by man-made disasters of various types. Some are so regular and widely dispersed across territories—such as road accidents, infant and maternal mortality, malnutrition, and water and air pollution—that they do not create the sensation of sudden disruption, despite the huge loss of lives that results. Others, such as industrial accidents, fires, collapsed buildings, and serial bomb blasts, have all the ingredients of disasters and put considerable stress on normal administrative and socioeconomic mechanisms. Added to these are the threats of nuclear, biological, and chemical disasters, as well as the recent threat of pandemics created by swine flu and avian influenza.
Paradigm Shift in Public Policies and Practices Four mega-disasters that each claimed more than ten thousand lives—the Latur and Bhuj earthquakes in 1993 and 2001, the super cyclone in Orissa in 1999, and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004—triggered a gradual but consistent shift in public policy on disaster management. No longer primarily focused on relief and rehabilitation efforts, policy approaches now seek holistic 1 Parts
of this essay were previously published in “Disaster Management & Climate Change: Indian Policy Frameworks and Key Challenges,” Centre for Social Markets, Discussion Paper Series, January 2011. Materials and Technology Promotion Council, Vulnerability Atlas of India, First Revision: Earthquake, Windstorm and Flood Hazard Maps and Damage Risk to Housing (New Delhi: Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council, 2006).
2 Building
3 Ministry
of Home Affairs, Government of India, Annual Report 2008–09 (New Delhi, 2009), http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/AR(E)0809.pdf.
Guha-Sapir, David Hargitt, and Philippe Hoyois, Thirty Years of Natural Disasters 1974–2003: The Numbers (Brussels: Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 2004).
4 Debarati
5 “Financing
Rapid Onset Natural Disaster Losses in India: A Risk Management Approach,” World Bank, Report, no. 26844-IN, August 2003, http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2003/11/10/000090341_20031110134554/Rendered/ PDF/268440IN.pdf.
CHALLENGES OF DISASTER MANAGEMENT IN INDIA u CHAKRABARTI
11
management of disasters that addresses pre-disaster issues of prevention, mitigation, and preparedness as well as post-disaster issues of response, recovery, and reconstruction. Heralding this paradigm shift in public policy, India’s Tenth Five-Year Plan (2002–7) stated: The traditional perception relating to the management and mitigation of natural disasters has been limited to the idea of “calamity relief,” which is seen essentially as a non-plan item of expenditure. However, the impact of major disasters cannot be mitigated by the provision of immediate relief alone, which is the primary focus of calamity relief efforts. Disasters can have devastating effects on the economy; they cause huge human and economic losses, and can significantly set back development efforts of a region or a State. With the kind of economic losses and developmental setbacks that the country has been suffering year after year, the development process needs to be sensitive towards disaster prevention and mitigation aspects. There is thus a need to look at disasters from a development perspective as well. 6
The plan also laid down a blueprint for the future: The future blue-print for disaster management in India rests on the premise that in today’s society while hazards, both natural or otherwise, are inevitable, the disasters that follow need not be so and the society can be prepared to cope with them effectively whenever they occur. The need of the hour is to chalk out a multi-pronged strategy for total risk management, comprising prevention, preparedness, response and recovery, on the one hand, and initiate development efforts aimed towards risk reduction and mitigation, on the other. Only then can we look forward to “sustainable development.”7
Based on this philosophy, a holistic framework for national disaster management has been developed, which highlights the interdependence of economy, environment, and development. This framework also links the issues of poverty alleviation, capacity-building, and community empowerment, on the one hand, and structural and non-structural issues of prevention, response, and recovery, on the other, for effective management of disaster risk.8 A comprehensive legal and institutional framework for disaster management has been set up through the Disaster Management Act passed by the Indian parliament in 2005. The act establishes a series of disaster management authorities at the national, state, and district levels, which are headed by the prime minister, provincial chief minister, and district magistrate and president, respectively. The act defines the functions and responsibilities of these bodies, prescribes the process to be followed for the preparation of disaster management plans at all levels, and provides for dedicated funds for disaster response and mitigation.
Recent Initiatives for Disaster Management in India The Indian government has adopted a number of new initiatives to improve its disaster preparedness. The utilization of advanced technology is a critical component of India’s new Commission, Government of India, Tenth Five Year Plan (2002–07), Vol. 1: Dimensions and Strategies (New Delhi, December 2002), 189.
6 Planning
Commission, Government of India, Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-07), Vol. 2: Sectoral Policies and Programmes (New Delhi, December 2002), 202.
7 Planning
12
8 Ministry
of Home Affairs, Government of India, Disaster Management in India: A Status Report (New Delhi, August 2004).
NBR SPECIAL REPORT u NOVEMBER 2011
