‘Pakistans Defence’ on ORF’s Radical Islam report

by Vladimir Radyuhin
October 2010
Link to original website

The West is using radical Islam as a tool in geopolitical games for dominance, Indian and Russian scholars have said in a unique collaborative project presented in Moscow this week. The project, “Radical Islam”, a 480-page collection of papers prepared by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi, and the Experimental Creative Centre (ECC), Moscow, was unveiled at a press conference in Moscow.

Edited by Sergei Kurginyan, ECC president, and Vikram Sood, vice-president, ORF, Centre for International Studies, it offers a fresh perspective on radicalisation of Islam, placing it in a wider geopolitical and philosophical framework. It examines the roots, the contexts and manifestations of radicalism in Islam, as well as activities of Islamists in South Asia, Central Asia, Iran, the Middle East, Europe and the former Soviet Union. Presenting their joint study, Indian and Russian scholars noted the West’s role in playing the card of radical Islam.

‘A factor since Partition’

“The West has been using religion and religious violence to promote separatism since the partition of India,” said Ambassador M. Rasgotra, President, ORF, Centre for International Relations. “The British were the first to do it in India, then the Americans learnt the trick. They incited jihad in Afghanistan, stirred separatism to break-up the Soviet Union and tried to tear Chechnya from post-Soviet Russia.” Dr. Kurginyan said that Russia still faced the danger of the West trying to re-enact the “Afghan scenario,” when radical Islam was used to provoke instability. He recalled that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had cultivated and financed Islamic radicals in Afghanistan to drag the Soviet Union militarily into civil strife in that country in 1979.

One of the Russian contributions in the book analyses the U.S.’ “deepening alliance with Islamism” along the vast southern “arc of instability” stretching from Northern Africa to the Chinese border. This strategy included the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the arming of the Afghan Mujahideen, the support of Muslim radicals in former Yugoslavia, cultivation of “moderate” Islamists in the Middle East, and finally, “the new alliance with Pakistan” to reintegrate the Taliban into the political mainstream in Afghanistan. The scholars noted the special importance of the Indian and Russian perspectives on Islam as it differed greatly from the Western perspective. “The West tends to look at Islam in black-and-white, while Indian and Russian researchers look at it in [a] multiplicity of identities, discourses and ideas,” Mr. Sanjoy Joshi, ORF said.

“Islam has been [a] part of life both in India and Russia for centuries, whereas the West in those same centuries was the oppressor of Islam,” Mr. Rasgotra said, adding that India and Russia had much to gain from sharing their experiences in handling the problem of radical Islam. “The nature of the problem is the same, even as its manifestations may be different. Your experience is relevant to us and our experience is relevant to you,” he stressed.

Dr. Kurginyan hailed the project on as a “revival of scholarly cooperation” between the two countries. “I’ve never seen such a meeting of minds between researchers from different countries as in this Indo-Russian project.”

“Radical Islam” has been brought out in Russian and its English edition is to be published in India. The editors said the ORF and ECC, planned to undertake further studies of Islam and other issues of mutual interest.

Water / Climate

Samir writes for the Asian Energy Institute (AEI) newsletter on ‘Climate change and human security: building a framework for action’

January 2011
Download the entire newsletter here (pdf)

Climate change and human security: building a framework for action

‘Climate and security’ is a narrative with multiple layers and irresolvable complexities. At the very core, it continues to remain a western narrative on a looming and enduring eastern reality.This very comprehension of climate and security lends to discussions an externality that both hemispheres find hard to reconcile. But before we discuss this inherent paradox within ‘climate security’—a term used to broadly describe situations, discussions, and elements that constitute security within and resulting from climate discourse and global climate action (modest at best), it may be useful to shape the boundaries of what be the core tendencies, trends, and impulses that define it.

The use of the terms ‘climate’ and ‘security’ in popular literature conjures up images of apocalyptic storms, landslides, extreme weather conditions, deluge, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, droughts, floods, cyclones, and similar weather phenomena that will ravage countrysides, inflict loss of life and property on an unimaginable scale, and result in mass exodus of populations. Be it the Hadley Centre Report that feeds this imagery through a more scientific and nuanced approach (Department of Energy and Climate Change) or the Stern Review that deploys this description to urge action by the developed and developing worlds (Stern 2007), the correlation between climate and such threats is unmistakable. This continues to be the defining imagination of security within the climate debate—hotly contested in terms of scale, size, and timelines. Images of death and destruction remain the central argument in the arsenal of a section of the political class, both in the West and East, who are vociferously urging action, incentives, and commitments around green technology, carbon trade, and innovation.

The success of the approach of linking climate action to impending apocalypse is debatable. Also at doubt is its ability to elicit appropriate response from policy- makers and institutions. Deploying images of death and destruction within the climate debate, some argue, is ‘climate pornography.’ It is forcefully stating the obvious, and as some would argue, also the inevitable (Ereaut, Gill, and Segnit 2006).The semantics of this argument are clearly built on the ‘fear for life’ and ‘fear of the future’, and seek to compel political action on this basis by gaining support in the larger public sphere. This approach seemed to have helped create a surge in the constituency of those seeking climate action, particularly in the Western countries. This has also resonated among a specific constituency in the emerging nations, prior to the Conference of Parties at Copenhagen last year. However, it has been unable to stem the disenchantment of the larger public from matters of climate, and ‘climate fatigue’ is setting in. As per a 26-country survey conducted by GlobeScan, concern for climate change is dwindling both in Europe and North America (GlobeScan 2010). According to the survey, support to climate efforts in the UK fell from 59% to 43%, and in Germany from 61% to 47%.This narrative was also unsuccessful in appealing to large constituencies in emerging countries and the developing world. This was a result of poor communication, hypocrisy, and inherent dichotomy in the construction of the debate.This predominantly western narrative on climate security describes the outcomes (floods, cyclones, and so on) through a matrix of predictive dates and probabilistic scenarios.This was an instance of science attempting to steer policy that, as some argue, failed. Science is comfortable with probability and percentages, but people are not. Communications on the matter often sounded weak and convoluted and the messages lacked clarity.They also lacked a central appeal, but more importantly, they failed to offer a response to the challenge. This was perhaps the biggest failure in the communication of the imminent dangers of global inaction.The articulation lacked considered and feasible global responses without which communications were read as scare mongering or where there were indications of certain action (read technology as the saviour) it was read as lobbying by vested interests. Global inattentiveness to ‘climate and security’, in some sense, is as much about a failure to communicate, as it is about political differences and high economic stakes.

However, the hypocrisy within the narrative surfaces when this debate seeks placing the occurrence of extreme climate events and disasters into the future and when action is urged for the benefit of future generations (such as the US President Barack Obama’s exhortation to act on climate change or risk ‘… consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe’). If, as climate science suggests, man-made emissions are able to subvert some of earth’s natural systems, then why are the current extreme events also not a result of the last two centuries of industrialization and rampant mercantile capitalist production? To many, the answer is simple yet hypocritical.The rich would have to foot the bill today for having squatted and ravaged the limited carbon space available as a common resource for global citizenry. The impact and solemnity of the climate and security argument would have far greater weight if developed nations were obligated to make good the costs of life and property that are lost in the poorer regions today due

to floods, cyclones, hurricanes.Yet while we hear a call for action on pricing carbon (which allows the rich to usurp more carbon space), incentives for technology and securing intellectual property rights, a determined and unequivocal call for damages of past action is missing. Ensuring that the countries with the means to respond to the suffering caused by such climate-related disruptions in poor and emerging countries, are allowed to absolve themselves of any responsibility, adds to skepticism, and weakens the most important argument—that of security—for global action.

Calls for global action sound hollow for another reason—the quantum of commitment made by the affluent nations.While the rhetoric of preserving the planet and human life is pitched high, what we see in terms of response is tokenism.To save the planet, the mightiest nations in the world got together at Copenhagen last year and then at Cancun recently, and committed to a paltry $100 billion each year by the year 2020.2 Let us now place this pledged amount against another recent response by the world community. It is estimated that over $3 trillion was committed by the US, China, EU, and other countries to help the world economy or as some suggest, to ‘save a few banks and large corporations’ (Barbier 2010). Three trillion to save the financial system and a 100 billion to save the planet—a fact that will undermine any security discourse within the climate narrative.

The other extremity of the climate-security narrative is less popular, but fast shaping as a significant line of thought. It focuses on elements of human security outside of the ‘life and property’ paradigm.This debate places the human right to develop, grow, and aspire for a better life as a primary objective of climate action (Saran 2010). Here, too, the western narrative seeks to focus the discourse on poverty reduction within the objectives of climate action, thereby reducing the aspirations of billions in the emerging world to that of survival and poverty-line existence.The fact that the industrial economies of the OECD and their high income populations were assisted and subsidized by carbon-intensive fossil fuels is cast aside as an act of ignorance, and the importance of the use of coal and gas in determining the pace at which India and other emerging countries develop is undermined by real but superficial arguments on ethics and shared responsibility. Poverty and growing aspirations are the two imperatives for any political system in emerging economies, and there would be political unrest if the leadership in these nations were to compromise on these.

However, the climate narrative is beginning to exert itself in the development processes of poor countries. Last year, we saw the US EXIM Bank deny a loan to a coal project in South Africa, and dither on a similar proposal for India citing potential emissions as the reason. If climate positions were to become barriers to trade and finance flows, we could perhaps be discussing the most significant and impending security paradigm for the emerging world.The impact of climate negotiations, and green capitalism that is rearing its head, are some elements that will define climate and security for India and other developing countries.

Let me conclude by posing some queries that policymakers in India and other developing countries will need to respond to. Can we ignore the real threat to life and property from extreme climate events? Can the actions of India reduce this threat? How can we compel the West to vacate carbon space, and cap and reduce lifestyle emissions? How will we be able to allow billions in India and the developing world to aspire and, seek homes, cars, holidays and infrastructure? Should we? Why should the first-time users of electricity in India (nearly 500 million) have to make do with token solar lamps that work for only a few hours? Why should the poorer 80% of the world’s population be made to bear responsibility for expensive climate action going forward? How do we ensure continued access to critical finance and technology required to develop infrastructure, and afford prosperity to millions? How do we carve out a global regime that removes carbon squatters and makes them pay for their historical retention of carbon space? Why should the emerging world support or incubate new technologies, when all major economies seek to place green technologies at the centre of their plans of re-industrialization and manufacturing competitiveness? Lastly, can we ignore the ‘green economy,’ and does it really provide India an opportunity to take a position of leadership in this new world? These are some of the competing dynamics of the ‘climate security’ narrative that we will need to navigate if we are to develop a robust framework that realizes the gravity of the climate and security narrative, and articulates the differentiated needs of the diversely developed regions of the world.

References

Barbier E B. 2010. A Global Green New Deal: Rethinking the Economic Recovery. Cambridge University Press. 171 pp.
Ereaut, Gill, and Segnit. 2006. War m Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better? London: Institute for Public Policy Research.
Department of Energy and Climate. Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. Met Office, Hadley Centre. Available at http://www.metoffice. gov.uk/publications/brochures/cop14.pdf.
GlobeScan. 2010. ‘Climate Concerns Decline since Copenhagen Summit: Global Summit.’ [Press Release 2 December 2010]. Available at: http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/cancun_radar/ Cancun_climate_release.pdf.
Saran S. 2010. The Globalisation and Climate Change Paradox: Implications for South Asian Security. In South and Southeast Asia: Responding to Changing Geo-Political and Security Challenges, edited by K V Kesavan and D Singh. New Delhi: ORF-Knowledge World. 141–161 pp.
Stern N. 2007. The Economics of Climate Change:The Stern Review. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Columns/Op-Eds, Politics / Globalisation

Samir writes on NetIndian: G-20 was promising, but short on substance

India, 2009
Link to original website

US President Barack Obama came to London with a mission. His primary goal was to ensure the participation of other countries in the US effort to pump money into the globaleconomy. His intentions were announced beforehand during his frequent media interactions. There had also been protests from the EU, led by France and Germany, who had rightly asserted that the institution of robust regulations in the global financial system must precede any further efforts to sustain the old world financial order by injecting funds through bailouts and stimuli. However, in the end Obama had his way, aided to a large extent by the emerging economies led by the Asian giants. While India eagerly supported the Americanline, the Chinese clearly lacked original voice, enmeshed as they are in the ‘Made in America’ mire.

The pre-summit dinner witnessed ‘Obamaspeak’ that was followed by the complementary and supportive remarks of the Indian Prime Minister, a noted economist and a credible voice of the Third World. These initial views seemed omnipresent in the final communiqué that was circulated at the conclusion of the summit. While Dr Manmohan Singh’s suggestions on protectionism, regulation and surveillance, IMF reforms and credit flows were a part of the final G-20 declaration, even he would be the first to admit (as he did at a press conference later), these key aspects formed part of the Rhetoric or future promise, even as the US endeavour to ensure global participation in the bail out efforts and recapitalization of institutions formed the substance of the agreement.

The Committee of 20 has agreed to infuse capital into the IMF without any immediate reform in its constitution and operations. The current $250 billion at the disposal of IMF would be increased by $500 billion. Japan and EU have agreed to provide $100 billion of additional funds while China will contribute $40 billion. The IMF will also increase the amount available to each country by way of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) by $250 billion. This allows distressed economies to literally print additional currency and convert it to tradable notes in extreme circumstances. There is also a suggestion that IMF would deploy more effective surveillance; hopefully implying it will watch the West as closely as it does the developing world. However, in the absence of regulations and regulatory authority it remains to be seen if this surveillance would amount to much. The world was expecting a reform of the IMF to be initiated and an urgent change in its governance; these measures have been relegated to the list of future efforts and promises.

The other major disappointment was the lack of progress in instituting a global financial regulator. As a consolation the G-20 agreed to strengthen the Financial Stability Forum and enlarge its membership to include India, China and Brazil (and have rechristened it as the Financial Stability Board). Though it aspires to serve as a watchdog and advise national regulators on activities of individual companies/organizations, the lack of defined powers will clearly undermine its ability to serve the role of a global regulator that is so urgently needed.

President Obama had unequivocally sought the participation of EU, India and China (read funding from) on the rescue efforts through government bailouts. His intention to get commitments from these countries was thwarted by the French and German governments. British Premier, Gordon Brown, though stitched together a compromise that restated the $ 5 trillion stimulus already announced by countries along with the possibility of further bail-outs in future if needed. Though this aspect was meant to be at the core of any G-20 resolution, it remains unresolved primarily due to the ‘Regulation Versus Stimulus’ divide between the US and continental Europe.

The Indian position has also supported the need for regulation though the conviction of its position will be tested in the days ahead. India needs to integrate with the global financial systems in order to access capital that it urgently needs. It is important that India argue for the early establishment of a supra-regulator so that the global risks to its banks and institutions are minimized.

India and other countries have also agreed to participate in recapitalizing financial institutions on the belief and with the stated intention of reviving global credit flows and have also agreed to jointly agree to the treatment of ‘toxic assets’. In fact treatment of ‘toxic asset’ in the declaration does not cut any new ground and the responsibility for the same still rests with local governments though a commonality in the mechanics is proposed. One of the great impediments for bank credit is the presence of these bad loans. Unless these bad loans are purged from the balance sheets it remains to be seen if banks could resume regular lending again and this important challenge still remains unaddressed.

President Obama made it clear at a post-summit press conference that his primary mandate is to servethe American citizens and this was evident in the discussion on protectionism and its articulation in the summit agreement. While the wordings have asked countries to desist from protectionist tendencies (trade barriers) till 2010 (12 months), there is skepticism as 17 nations have already breached trade practices since November last, when a similar agreement had been endorsed. The suggestion of this 12 month time-frame itself is suspect. Why should any time-frame be mentioned and why should not all trade at all time respect the WTO arrangements? Wouldn’t this special emphasis on a time period actually encourage countries such as the US to operate outside of the WTO claiming special circumstances? This summit will also strengthen Obama’s hand as he defends his position on the issue of executive salaries and bonuses at home. New rules and best practices agreed to by the G-20 crack down on the multi-million dollar cash bonuses doled out as reward for risky investment and trading calls.

In conclusion it would seem that the while the current crisis may see the end of the ‘Washington Consensus’, the overwhelming dominance of President Obama at the summit underscores that Washington would firmly remain the architect and the driver of the new world order through, and on the other side of, this crisis. The outcome of this summit can be summed up as ‘No Stimulus and No Regulation’ declaration, though with plenty of promises on both fronts.

The author is Vice-President-Development and Outreach at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in New Delhi. His area of expertise is Regulation/Policy, Corporate Communications and Media Studies. An electrical engineer by training, Mr Saran is a Masters in Media Studies from the London School of Economics. Frpm 1994 onwards he has had a rich and diverse experience in the Indian private sector and was actively engaged with regulators and policy-makers during the 1990s as India undertook economic reforms. Since October 2008, Mr Saran is developing and implementing the outreach and development programmes at ORF. His current projects are in the domain of “globalisation” and include studies on Islam, Radicalisation, Climate Change and the Global Financial Crisis. He continues to contribute in various fora on regulatory aspects and on the political economy. The views expressed in this article are his own.

In the News

An initiative I care for: The Special Child Trust

Samir is partnering with The Special Child Trust.
Link to original website.
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BRICS, In the News

China.org.cn reports on BRICS Think Tank meeting, 2011

April 15, 2011
Xinhua, China
Link to original website

Representatives from think tanks of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) discussed ways to fight climate change at a seminar here Wednesday. The seminar, called BRIC Think-Tank Summit, gathered members of think tanks from the BRIC countries to examine the global economic situation and the role of BRIC countries in the post-crisis global transformation.

World countries need to take joint action to fight climate change, said Indian representative Samir Saran from the Observer Research Foundation. Chinese representative Wu Enyuan, with the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the developed countries had a bigger responsibility on carbon emission reduction as the current climate change is a result of some 150 years of industrialization process of the developed nations.

But he said the developing countries, including the BRIC nations, should take their fair share of responsibility as well, and adopt measures to fight global warming. “China has fulfilled its responsibility by taking practical actions in either energy conservation or environmental protection,” he said, adding that other BRIC countries have also committed themselves to carbon emission reduction.

Brazil’s representative Eduardo Viola said that implementing these measures is more important than holding discussions. Russian representative Nikolai Mikhailov said climate change unveiled the notion that human beings can treat nature as they want without caring about the consequences. Only a radical change in their attitude could make a difference, he said.

The two-day seminar was held on the eve of the second BRIC summit scheduled for Friday in the Brazilian capital.

In the News

Institute of Peace and Conflict studies reviews “South and Southeast Asia”

by Tuli Sinha, Research Officer SEARP, IPCS
2011
Link to original website

This book marks the success of the initiative taken by two extremely renowned research institutes of India and Southeast Asia. The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) and Observer Research Foundation (ORF) assembled in Singapore to discuss the crucial issues emerging in South and Southeast Asia. The first Dialogue was held in New Delhi in 2006 and it focused on the Political and Security Dynamics of South and Southeast Asia. This book is the culmination of papers presented in the second Dialogue held in Singapore in 2009, which concentrated on Changing Geo-Political and Security Challenges in South and Southeast Asia. With a world engulfed in the aftermaths of financial meltdown and the uncertainty pertaining to the future trajectory of Asian geo politics and Asian regionalism, the dialogue efficiently selected themes to suit the changing power dynamics in South and Southeast Asia.

The book is divided across five major themes. First, on Major Power Dynamics in South and Southeast Asia, this incorporates the works of Dilip Lahiri and Daljit Singh regarding these two regions. The two essays examine the shifts in the dynamics of the super power relations in India and Southeast Asia. The changing role of the United States and China is explained in the context of end of Cold War and present day scenario in both the regions. Also, an effort is made to predict the future conflict or conditions of a peaceful co-existence among the super powers in the Asia-Pacific.

The second theme focuses on the Rise of Asian Maritime Power and its Implications on Southeast Asia. This section contains essays by Vijay Sakhuja and Admiral P S Das, which gives a detailed account of the rising Chinese naval strength and Indian concerns on maritime security issues. Their work brings forth the direct implication of a strong Chinese naval base for Southeast Asia and India. The phenomenal rise of China as a regional power in terms of maritime might is a matter of concern for Southeast Asian and Indian security as the seas are and have always been the fundamental source of trade and energy explorations.

The third section of the book deals with Security Issues in Southeast Asia by Ian Storey, Carlyle A Thayer and K Yhome. These works revolve around the central issues of concern in Southeast Asian context. The South China Sea Dispute is examined in context of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties. The other chapter in the section is on Myanmar, which is one of the most dynamic and strategically located countries of Southeast Asia. The chapter argues that given the context of rising geo strategic importance of the region, it becomes imperative to assess the current situation and the future prospects of Myanmar in particular. With unlimited avenues of energy and other economic and commercial opportunities, this region is eventually looked upon as the hub of economic activities by the external powers. Despite prolonged conditions of political turmoil and instability, the region has managed to carve a niche in the eyes of China and the United States for future engagements which is highly commendable.

The fourth theme deals with the Evolving Asian Regionalism and comprises essays by Rodolfo C. Severino and K V Kesavan. These works primarily discuss the role of regional institutions amidst the rise of East Asian regionalism and India’s position. They have exquisitely explained the formation and significance of ASEAN and its several offshoots that have emerged over the years. There is also a detailed mention of the concept of Look East Policy of India and its future with regards to maritime and nuclear security concerns.

Finally, the last theme assesses the extremely recent and most critical concern of the world through the chapter on Non-Traditional Security Challenge: Climate Change; it assesses the implications for South and Southeast Asia. This section incorporates the works of Lee Pon Onn and Samir Saran, which presents an extensive account of climate change and issues regarding globalization. Amidst the nuances of the Copenhagen Summit held in 2009 and rising concerns about climate, this chapter holds great significance and is central to the title of the book. Besides climate change, several other significant issues such as water, agriculture, forestry and health in the regions have also received deserved attention.

Summing up, the book is an excellent amalgamation of issues of strategic importance to South and Southeast Asia in the current geopolitical scene. The strength is in coherent showcasing of diverse viewpoints of the scholars from both the regions of South and Southeast Asia. The work stresses upon the major power shifts in this region, in context to the super power relations in the region. Collectively these eminent scholars have discussed the probable effects of such a power shift in varied sectors of Asia-Pacific. The essays forcefully bring forth the argument of an increasing cooperation between India and Southeast Asia validating the notion of the successful India’s Look East Policy. The identification of the themes is deft and presents a detailed historical background to each study to forge better understanding. With regard to the recent developments in Traditional and Non-Traditional security aspects, the work unravels the myriad connotations of several initiatives in the area of climate change, energy security, terrorism and water and further examines the future role and prospects in the region.

Though the book impressively portrays the crucial issues of concern in both the regions, it has certain limitations. First, the book tends to focus on the United States and China relations in South and Southeast Asia and comes across as a China centric study. Second, several other countries as Indonesia, Thailand of this region have not received a thorough engagement in the work. It merely discusses the case of Myanmar, India and ASEAN as other countries have been bypassed. Third, the sporadic reference to terrorism, nuclear proliferation and energy in particular, is unable to do justice to such issues of vital concern in history as well as in years to come. Further, though every essay provides a detailed explanation of changing geopolitical and strategic security challenges, they fail to raise abundant burning questions regarding the future possibilities and prospects of the same. Also, the inclusion of theoretical base to the study of power play in Southeast Asia and India would have enhanced the qualitative dimension.

This combined effort of such expert scholars and K V Kesavan and Daljit Singh in particular, as the editors, is certainly an asset to the available literature on geostrategic issues for scholars and researchers in the relevant field. It provides an excellent assessment of the super power play in the regions and how it has paved the way for several opportunities and challenges simultaneously. It is gratifying to note the various global, regional and inter-regional initiatives that have been started in order to address security concerns and the efforts being made in numerous dimensions, aptly dealt with in the essays of this volume. This book is definitely among the best works in the subject which discusses different regional perspectives on the dynamic geopolitical scenario in South and Southeast Asia and adds to the existing facts as well as sets the base for further research work in years to come.

In the News, Water / Climate

Human Security Gateway features ORF’s report on water security in South Asia, 2011

May 2011
Link to original website
Feature on Feedblitz

Type :	Report
Title :	Water Security in South Asia: Issues and Policy Recommendations
Source :	Observer Research Foundation
Date Added:	20-May-2011
Publication Date :	28-Feb-2011
URL :	http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/ORF-Water-Security-in-South-Asia.pdf
Abstract :	This brief is largely based on several discussions organised at Observer Research Foundation over a period of time. These discussions were enriched by the presence of some of the well-known experts on water issues in the country, like former Union Minister for Water Resources, Dr. Suresh Prabhu, current High Commissioner of Bangladesh, Tariq Ahmad Karim, Mr. Sunjoy Joshi, Director, Observer Research Foundation, Ms. Clare Shakya, Senior Regional Climate Change and Water Adviser, DFID*, India, Mr. Samir Saran, Vice President, ORF and Dr. Dinesh Kumar, Executive Director, Institute for Resource Analysis and Policy, Hyderabad.It is estimated that by 2030, only 60 per cent of the world’s population will have access to fresh water 1 supplies . This would mean that about 40 per cent of the world population or about 3 billion-people would be without a reliable source of water and most of them would live in impoverished, conflictprone and water-stressed areas like South Asia. Water is already an extremely contentious, and volatile, issue in South Asia. There are more people in the region than ever before and their dependence on water for various needs continues to multiply by leaps and bounds. The quantum of water available, for the present as well as future, has reduced dramatically, particularly in the last half-acentury. This is due to water-fertiliser intensive farming, overexploitation of groundwater for drinking, industrial and agricultural purposes, large scale contamination of water sources, total inertia in controlling and channelising waste water, indifferent approach to water conservation programmes and populist policies on water consumption.

In the News, Non-Traditional Security, Politics / Globalisation

Australian’s Raleigh Times covers ORF’s Latin America event, 2011

August 2, 2011
Link to original website

Participating in an interaction at Observer Research Foundation, envoys from 17 countries from Latin America said their countries are keen to strengthen economic relations with India. “We want better, mutually beneficial relations with India. We have got lots of natural resources, especially oil and other energy resources. But we don’t want to be just provider of resources. We want you to cooperate in our development also,” said Columbian Ambassador Juan Alfredo Pinto Saavedra.

Saavedra, the coordinator of the group of Ambassadors of the Latin American countries, said the US and the Europe used resources from their countries for their development, but did not help them in the development. “While they used our resources, we remained poor,” he said. He wanted India and China to be different in their approach to Latin American countries.

Besides the Columbian Ambassador, Ambassadors from Paraguay, Uruguay, Panama, Costo Rica, Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Dominican Republic attended the interaction. The other countries were represented by high level diplomats like Deputy Chief the Missions and Charge d’ Affaires. The Ambassadors were given a presentation on the ORF Report on India’s non-traditional security threats, titled “Navigating the Near” by Samir Saran, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation. This study was done by ORF for the Integrated Defence Staff, the Ministry of Defence.

Chairing the meeting, M. Rasgotra, a former Foreign Secretary and now President of the ORF Centre for International Relations, said Latin American countries enjoyed good sentiments in India. He said India would be keen to have mutually beneficial cooperation with them.

Former Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath and ORF Director Sunjoy Joshi also took part in the meeting.

BRICS, In the News

Chinese Crienglish.com reports on BRICS Think Tank meeting, 2011

March 26, 2o11
Link to original website

BRICS think-tanks call for closer economic ties

Think-tanks from five major developing economies are now calling for closer economic ties among the BRICS countries, just ahead of the group’s summit in Hainan, China next month. BRICS countries include China, Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa.
International relations expert Jin Canrong from China’s Renming University says, despite booming economies, the five countries still do not have enough say in global economic dialogues.

“The top agenda of the next summit is still the economy, and especially the top ten topics talked about at this year’s G20 summit in France. For instance, the fluctuating raw material prices, and the possibility of giving an index for economic imbalance – those are all important.” Samir Saran, senior researcher with India’s Observer Foundation, says the BRICS countries could find more shared interests economy-wise. “For the BRICS countries, there is still enough room to enhance their cooperation in energy, electricity, food security, agriculture and technology. Also, the five countries could learn from each other regarding eliminating poverty, improving healthcare and education.”

In the News, Water / Climate

Samir attends the SANSAC Climate and Security Roundtable, 2010

August 6, 2010, New Delhi
Link to original website

Summary of discussion
Chair: Fergus Auld, UK Cross-Government Climate Change and Energy Unit, India

International Alert convened a roundtable meeting, kindly hosted by the British High Commission in New Delhi, with the generous support of the EU, to generate a critical discussion on the inter-linkages between climate change and conflict in South Asia and to identify the institutional and governance level knowledge and capacity gaps to promote effective responses to these risks.

The meeting was an opportunity to take forward discussion in India on the relationship between climate change, resilience and security. Bringing together institutional representatives and civil society experts, the discussion addressed the complexities of responding to climate change in conflict-affected contexts in South Asia and the institutional responses to dealing with such risks. In particular, the group explored:

Where human (and indeed state) security should fit into the climate change policy discussion?
What the link between climate change and violent conflict means for development policy?
The specific issues to be addressed in fragile communities.
The best ways to move the debate with not only the necessary sense of urgency but also awareness of the depth and breadth of the issues and the appropriate policy responses.

Background:
As more people become aware of and motivated by the links between climate change, conflict, peace and security, both the possibility of and the necessity for clarity about these links increases. Regardless of the scarcity of data, the climate change and security dialogue is moving ahead and shaping thinking and policy as it goes. Alongside this is concern from some quarters about the so-called ‘securitisation’ of climate change. A pragmatic response to this means ensuring the climate change and security dialogue is as informed as it can be by appropriate actors keying into the dialogue to embed sustainable development and peacebuilding priorities into the core of the debate.

Key issues discussed:

What is the value of the climate change and security discourse? Is it a distraction from adaptation and mitigation priorities?There are three particular risks in the climate change and security nexus:

i) Just as security fears can mobilise people and change, sensationalist scenarios demobilise, especially when they turn out not to justified by the evidence.

ii) Treating conflict and security issues as if they will produce direct threats from one country against another, or even one group against another, which is the language of military security will distort the debate and the policy response; at worst, the response will be inappropriate and wasteful.

iii) Basing the argument on an over-simplified linkage could generate policies that miss their targets in other ways and simply lead to confusion and uncertainty about what the problem is and why anyone should care.

Yet the discourse exists and will continue to move in some cases with more policy leverage than the adaptation or ‘common but differential responsibility’ for mitigation discourse. As such, the three risks above notwithstanding, engaging in the security discourse is a vehicle for getting critical development and governance concerns to the policy table.

What is the nature of the causal link between climate change and security?

Policy cannot and should not be based on a straightforward cause-and-effect relationship between climate change and violent conflict or political instability. There is a lack of research findings on the topic and what there is does not offer robust conclusions. And there are good reasons for this: namely that causality is always complex. Armed conflicts not only have several different causes but several different types of causes. These are often conflated, blurring the differences between background or root causes, the immediate trigger, the role of the external actors etc. The fact is that simple cause-and-effect is rarely if ever enough to explain the origins of a conflict.

Given this lack of clear causal link, the sparse research literature on climate change and security contains some that declares that no link can be proven. But the fact that no link can be proven is not the same as saying none exists. A real limitation of studies so far is that they work by reflection on the past – whereas the key point to understand about climate change is that the future will be different from the past.

Perhaps the largest security risk of climate change is the most preventable one. That is the risk that climate change policy itself will be the most destabilising factor in fragile communities. The reasons are three-fold:

i) New financing mechanism on climate change strive towards ‘national ownership’, but where the state government is an actor in the conflict and is party to structural exclusion and marginalisation, this essentially provides an additional ‘point resource’ for elite capture and for the perpetuation of existing systems of exclusion and inequity.

ii) Lack of adequate consideration of the knock-on consequences on interventions to address climate change can have inadvertent negative consequences which could stoke instability. The rapid switch from food to fuel crops in the ill-informed bio-fuels experiment which lead to global riots in 2008 is a case in point. There are many more trip wires of unintended consequences in the path low carbon development which need to be understood from a conflict sensitivity perspective, particularly around REDD and hydro.

iii) Any action involves a trade-off and creates new winners and losers. A shift in priority to narrow and technical adaptation or mitigation responses will entail others issues – perhaps basic services such as health or education – being pushed down the agenda. In already fragile communities where governance is weak and basic service delivery is poor, such a shift could rupture an already weak social contract between citizens and the state.

How to address the lack of empirical evidence?

The evidence base for climate and security interlinkages is necessarily weak; there has been too little time since the effects of climate change began to receive adequate attention for research data to have accumulated of the kind needed for large-scale quantitative studies that can reliably depict trends. Further, the state of knowledge in the natural sciences does not let us attribute specific events such as flood or drought to climate change, nor does it offer any policy relevant predictions of impacts at the regional level. As such, there is a case for turning instead to case studies. While limited in their generalisability, developing a broad geographic spread of case study evidence which drill deep down to understand community level perhaps offers the best solution to the knowledge gap in the interim.

Conclusions:
There was strong consensus that the solution to the risk of climate change policy itself becoming a security threat is linking dialogues. This entails much more local level research into climate change and security links and risk transmission pathways (such as rural-urban migration, food insecurity, service delivery failure), addressing governance capacity constraints to ‘joined-up’ programming, and advocacy to move the debate beyond concerns that the security dialogue will hijack the climate change dialogue, and instead to bring the dialogues together.

Next steps:
Interested parties are to remain part of an ongoing dialogue process in India, and also to link into the regional climate change and security dialogue. Specific aims of this dialogue process would be to bring development and human security concerns, lessons and good practice to the heart of the climate change and security debate. Alert is happy to facilitate the dialogue. ORF have offered to host the next meeting. In the meantime, all participants are welcome to share resources through the South Asia Network on Security and Climate Change web-space (www.sansac.org).

List of participants:
1. Ranu Sinha, Operations Analyst, Water Resource Management, World Bank

2. Samir Saran, Senior Fellow and Vice President, Observer Research Foundation

3. Rob Donkers, Environment Minister Counsellor, EU delegation India

4. Mansie Kumar, EU Delegation India

5. Uttam Sinha, IDSA

6. Gitanjali Nandan, First Secretary, Australian High Commission

7. L Vijayanathan, Senior Adviser, Environment, Climate and Energy, Norwegian Embassy

8. Karolina Hedström, Regional Crisis Response Planner – South Asia, EU India

9. Deepti Mahajan, Research Associate, Resources and Global Security,Teri

10. Fergus Auld, First Secretary Climate Change and Energy, DfID India/British High Commission

11. Clare Shakya, Senior Regional Climate Change and Water Adviser – Asia, DfID India

12. Janani Vivekananda, Climate Change and Security Adviser, International Alert