Imaginations and Constructions: Rethinking Human Security

The traditional human security concept argues individual against the state, initiating a fracture of the state-centric primordiality of International Relations. In a post-COVID-19 pandemic world that is having dramatic effects on everyday life, wherein health security has taken center stage, and the issues of unemployment, hunger, and poverty have impacted human security globally. Furthermore, the lockdowns have ruined livelihood of people in different parts of the world affecting human security more profoundly that any other issue. Locating these in the Indian-centric ideas of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” and the Pancha Bhuta approach, this study focuses on thinking outside of the narrow state- and region-centric perspective proposing an alternative approach to address the concerns of human security. In the context of human development per se, it is a call for a human bond of security. The issue is whether can there be an alternative narrative to the dominant narrative. Can Asian narratives be developed? If so, what are the sources on which we can construct such alternative narratives? This paper locates it in an Indo-centric framework.