Security Policies in Indian Borderlands: Affecting Civilian lives?

Human security, as a concept, theory and lens of analysis represents a departure from state-centric discourse over security, which prioritises the state as the referent object of security. As a lens that seeks to bring the critical elements of freedom from ‘fear’ and ‘want’, human security marks a departure from militarisation and securitisation of policy making. Within this more significant shift in theoretical models of security, this thesis emerges as a humble attempt at policy analysis and critique understanding on India’s security policy in its borderlands through comparative case studies in the context of India, posing questions and seeking answers to the question of what, and more importantly, who ‘security’ must address. By bringing to comparison borderlands or fringe territories of India, distant from the national centre in more ways than geographic, this thesis analyses the Indian security policy in the Kashmir Valley and the state of Manipur, both contested territories with decades-long protracted conflicts, who have been subject to an overwhelming deterioration of human rights. Through the use of legal and analytical sources, the scale and methods, as well as particular rights that are violated by the security apparatus in these borderlands, are traced. The central argument of this thesis remains that human rights violations are part of India’s national security policy, particularly visible in its borderlands. To sum up the findings of the thesis, it reveals that policy formulation or policy agenda-setting in India has followed a classic national security perspective rather than that of human security: not taking into consideration the nuances and differences in ethnic, social, economic and political differences while the analysis of policy effects further calls for prevention-oriented, people-centred approach.