Facets of India’s Security Essays for C. Uday Bhaskar

This volume brings together established and emerging scholars from academia and think tanks to reflect on important, conceptual, strategic and developmental issues in India?s national security. It provides a comprehensive understanding of national security through a more open approach, covering both traditional and non-traditional concerns that have a bearing on the survival and well-being of humanity. It discusses key themes such as perceptions about China, civil-military relations, gender and military, nuclear safety, arms trade and cybersecurity, human security, food and water security, soft power and the media's role in covering security issues. As a festschrift for Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar, it highlights and adds to his scholarly contributions to the national security debate in the country for the past three decades.

A unique contribution, this volume will be indispensable for students and researchers of politics and international relations, national security, human security, geopolitics, non-traditional security, military and strategic studies, and South Asian studies.

Introduction Conceptual Issues 1. The Indian Rediscovery of Geopolitics 2. Why India Underbalanced Against China in the 1950s: Evaluating Neoclassical Realist Theory 3. Perils of Ideological Maximalism 4. A Change in the Pattern of Civil-Military Relations in India 5. Changing Trends in Gender Practices of the Indian Military Hard Security Issues 6. The ‘Islamic State’ and Threats to India’s National Security 7. Nuclear Security in India: The Need for Proactivism 8. Challenges to India’s Security: The Nuclear Dimension 9. Arms Trade and National Security: An Indian Perspective 10. India’s Cybersecurity: Concepts and Policies Developmental Issues 11. Human Security Discourse in India: Contest, Convergence and Practice 12. Food Security in India 13. Tough Times Ahead: India’s Economic Security 14. India’s Search for Sustainable Energy Security 15. Disaster Management and National Security: Impact of Covid-19 16. Assuring India’s Water Security 17. Environmental Security in India 18. Soft Power and National Security: A Study of Indian Policy in Afghanistan 19. Media and National Security C. Uday Bhaskar: More than a Family Man 20. A Life Together 21. My Father: An Unusual Man 22. CUB, The Enabler (T.E.) aka the Man who Loves his Acronyms 23. Select Writings of Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar on National Security

P.R. Kumaraswamy is Professor of contemporary Middle East in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. From 1992 to 1999 he was a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Jerusalem. Since joining JNU in September 1999, he has been researching, teaching and writing on various aspects of the contemporary Middle East. His works include Squaring the Circle: Mahatma Gandhi and the Jewish National Home (2018), India’s Israel Policy (2010), and Historical Dictionary of the Arab Israeli Conflict (2015, second edition). In October 2009, he set up the virtual Middle East Institute, New Delhi, and serves as its honorary director. He is the editor of Contemporary Review of the Middle East and the series editor of Persian Gulf: India’s Relations with the Region.