India’s National Security Discourse: A Conceptual Introduction

In the larger and rather ‘underdeveloped’ concept of security discourse (as Barry Buzan would call it), the idea of national security is often found to be entangled between two dominant narratives around power struggle and pursuit for peace in international politics. Within a policy framework, national security is often understood to have encompassed the decision and actions deemed imperative to protect domestic core values from external threats (Leffler, The Journal of American History. 77:143–152, 1990). However, such a position on national security only offers a limited understanding of the subject and the issues related to it. Stepping away from the scope of traditional understanding of international relations and security discourses, national security issues offer more critical questions, like security of what to whom and security at what cost to whom (Buzan, People, States, and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Wheatsheaf Books, 1983). Such questions are better answered, possibly, when the concept of national security is contextualized based on the specificities of a nation-state. In this process one can critically engage with multiple issues concerning security, ranging from the threats to people to that of the nation-state. This chapter critically engages with the various discourses of national security and in this process makes a case for various issues that need to be highlighted and discussed in the scope of India’s security concerns.