Environment and security in India: a hyphenated discourse

Abstract

The paper argues that the discourse on environment and security in India is a hyphenated discourse wherein security is defined narrowly as national security and development is measured in economist growth terms. The dominant "development first" discourse sees a trade-off between environment and economic growth while the "nationals security" discourse privileges military security, where environmental dimensions of security are at best reduced to the military idioms of threat, conflict and availability of strategic resources, thus taking a limited view of environmental security. As a result, India measures poorly in a range of environmental parameters and indices, making it a microcosm of environmental insecurities from water scarcity to climate change; from air and water pollution to loss of forest cover and biodiversity; and, from desertification to the problem of solid waste management. Drawing on some alternative discourse(s) that advocate synergy between human and nature through voluntary reduction of wants, greed and desires and foregrounding equality and social justice as a guide to human action, the paper argues that alternative discourse(s) offer us unique pathways to live in harmony with nature which can go a long way in integrating the hyphenated environment-security discourse.