Since 1950, every year, 10th December has been celebrated as Human Rights Day, commemorating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). That 1948 document is still relevant, and almost all states try to ensure adherence to all human rights – civil, political, economic, social, and cultural – as per the dictum of UDHR. However, in the post-pandemic era, ensuring human rights is not enough; one must think about human security, too.

The basic difference between human rights and human security 

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No doubt, human rights form the core of human security. However, human security expands beyond just the physical security sense. It encourages individuals to get ‘freedom from fear,’ ‘freedom from want,’ and ‘freedom to Live in Dignity.’

This concept emerged after the end of the Cold War when state versus community conflict became rampant, and states became more concerned with internal conflicts rather than external ones. Now, human security encompasses modern security threats like cyber-attacks, environmental degradation, and mental insecurity.

It encompasses all seven security threats of modern human-beings, like:

(1) Economic security – Unemployment, job insecurity, income inequality, inflation, underdeveloped social security, and homelessness

(2) Food security – The problems of physical and economic access to food

(3) Health security – Threats to life and health and inadequate access to health services

(4) Environmental security – The degradation of ecosystems, pollution of water, air and soil

(5) Personal security – Physical violence, war, discrimination, domestic violence, child abuse

(6) Community security – Ethnic tensions and violent conflicts

(7) Political security – State repression and violation of human rights

Hence, in a nutshell, while human rights are universal rights that protect the dignity of all people, human security is a people-centered approach that focuses on protecting individuals and communities. In the post-pandemic world, every country nowadays is trying to ensure human rights as well as human security. This year’s UN (United Nations) theme of human rights acknowledges the same, which calls to action the acceptance of the importance and relevance of human rights in our everyday lives by speaking up against hate speech, correcting misinformation, and countering disinformation.

The year 2024 saw many threats to human security worldwide. Along with the long war between Ukraine and Russia, we saw the opening of war zones in West Asia as well. Escalation of violence was reported worldwide. The names Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Myanmar are in daily news.

In regard to these scenarios, India is taking a pivotal role in peace-making and soft power diplomacy. From the Nehruvian non-alignment approach, the Modi government shifted to a multi-alignment stand where world leaders are listening to our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in different world-level meetings like G20, BRICS, and so on. In spite of having a diverse population, India maintained peace and democracy through enshrining values of human rights and human security in her Constitution and schemes. In a NHRC (National Human Rights Commission) event, Prime Minister Modi drew an analogy between human rights and India’s independence movement, saying that the respect for human rights in the country is largely due to the long freedom struggle that the nation went through. For this brotherly approach of India, we can see the pivotal role of India in most of the important international and regional organisations worldwide, and India is, therefore, now leading a global movement for human rights through human security values.

The writer is the Executive Director, Interdisciplinary Institute of Human Security & Governance, New Delhi, India