It is no coincidence that South Asian experts themselves emphasise that the majority of the population is primarily concerned with more prosaic, yet vital, security issues—access to electricity, adequate water resources and food supplies, and protection from the consequences of climate change.
Resource Scarcity
Energy security issues are acute across the region: South Asian countries are net importers of energy resources, and their availability determines not only overall macroeconomic growth rates and the development of specific sectors, but in some cases the stable functioning of public utilities and the national economy as a whole. Thus, for India, an energy deficit would mean slower economic growth, whereas for Pakistan it translates into regular rolling blackouts. An extreme case is Sri Lanka: the fuel crisis of 2022 became one of the markers of the inefficiency of the country’s entire economic model and a catalyst for mass protests that forced the ruling elite to resign their posts.
Resource scarcity is also evident in water management and agriculture. The interdependence of the two systems is particularly critical in countries where the majority of the population is employed in the agrarian sector. Rising water withdrawals and inefficient water use adversely affect food security: even if low yields do not produce outright hunger or malnutrition, they reduce farmers’ incomes and necessitate increased agricultural imports, impacting the balance of payments and raising food prices for end consumers. Although in the past year, even this issue has come to acquire
. a military-political dimension, another aspect appears more significant—both expert communities and populations across South Asia are especially concerned about the consequences of climate change.
Increased intensity of monsoon precipitation, for example, triggers catastrophic flooding, claiming hundreds of lives and destroying millions of homes. Such disasters are typical of coastal states and countries with major river basins—such as Bangladesh and Pakistan. Beyond infrastructure damage and crop losses, another destabilising consequence is climate-induced migration: people are forced to leave their habitual environment and relocate to unfamiliar areas, where their living conditions and sense of personal security are unlikely to improve—this is particularly true for women.
Gender and Discrimination
There are several issues that, whenever current events bring them to the fore, are guaranteed to dominate the front pages of South Asian newspapers. One such issue is gender-based discrimination against women in its broadest sense, as well as sexual violence, domestic abuse, and specific applications of customary law—whether child marriage or aspects of divorce procedures that infringe upon women’s rights.
It should be noted, in fairness, that the governments of South Asian countries do address these issues and attempt to resolve them—gender security is identified
as a component of national security, specialised legislation is adopted, and campaigns are launched to prevent
sexual offences and customary family law practices that contradict
constitutional norms.
The difficulty lies in implementing these initiatives within traditionally structured societies whose functioning is, moreover, constantly threatened by interstate, intrastate, and transboundary armed conflict, shortages of critical resources, and climate change, which erodes the natural environment.
The cumulative effect of these conditions not only reduces the likelihood of resolving gender security issues, but also calls into question the very possibility of effectively countering the full spectrum of traditional and non-traditional threats in South Asia. Nevertheless, an essential step towards understanding the region’s security challenges lies at least in shifting the analytical focus from geopolitical confrontation to the everyday life of the individual, and to the threats that surround him or her.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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