Small Arms and the Security Debate in South Asia

Published in association with Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo. Easy availability of small arms and their unscrupulous use can easily be identified as the single most contributing factor that triggers and sustains human insecurity. The end of the Cold War brought forth a dialectic change in the traditional debate on security and ushered in discourses on a whole range of non-military challenges to security, including small arms. Unfortunately, this change is not yet reflected in South Asia, where emphasis is primarily on enhancing military postures and capabilities, and persistent tensions between India and Pakistan backed by their nuclear prowess have stifled non-military security concerns not only in these countries, but in the region as a whole. This slim volume attempts to introduce the subject of small arms proliferation in the overlapping areas of the two thresholds of the security discourse -- state security, and human security. Issues pertaining to the increased use of explosives and illegal domestic production, which have not received the attention they merit have been discussed at some length. The authors make out a case for regional cooperation to arrest further inflow of arms in the region from neighbouring conflict zones.