Sumal Kumar Gurung,

1. Introduction.
The term ‘security’ in a wider sense covers a wide range of security concept in our day to day life. It has a significant impact on all global activities associated with mankind. In general, we can define the term ‘security’ as safety measures to be adopted to save life, prevent and minimize loss of property. If we go through the pages of history, we find adoption of various methods of security measures in many ways in various stages of history to secure life, land and property from the invaders. Some of the ancient great creations like “The Great Wall of China” and other ancient fortresses built in different parts of globe from time immemorial are also example to secure the country from external invasion. In modern age, we find a wide range of modern technologies to assist us in adopting the security measures to prevent from loss, theft and burglary. We are lucky to have the modern sophisticated monitoring devices which enable us to monitor each and every friction of activities in a computerized system to save life, property and prevent the crime. It is not easy to lead a normal life smoothly if we are not committed to establish a sense of security. A minor lapse in security system can face serious consequences for life and property from an individual to nation as a whole. A terrorist attack, we can say a devil’s act, has been always a threat and mass destruction to mankind. On the other hand, dumping of NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) weapon has also created a nightmare in most parts of our mother earth. No one is safe due to global security threat. The term security does not merely covers the safe guard of the mankind from invasion, theft, burglary, but it has also the threat related with natural disasters such as floods, eruption of volcanoes, great earthquakes and great epidemics like plagues, Tsunami, Hurricanes and SARS etc.

In order to simplify the meaning of security concept and with a view to enhancing and broaden the meaning, we can divide security concept and its characteristics into three parts which are outlined briefly in the succeeding paragraphs such as Security of Man, Material and Information.

2. Security of Man.
While we talk about the security of man, it includes all the mankind and associated living creatures of the world that always tend to protect and defend from any form of security threat. Right from the Stone Age, human being has been searching for shelter, food and safety. Through the passage of time, it went on changing and the pattern of shelter, food and safety also changes accordingly. At the beginning, mankind tried to conquer and explore the unseen world with limited knowledge and resources. They were always in a threat of being attacked by any ferocious animals, intruders or unpredicted powers on adverse hazardous terrain and weather conditions which were not known to them. Early stage of human civilization tells us how the primitive people adopted security measures by means of hiding or taking shelter in the caves, constructing some improvised shelters to safeguard their lives. The light of civilization has paved the way of gradual development in all aspects of mankind to rise at its highest point through many stages of civilizations.

Our forefathers had never imagined the wonderful modern technologies and scientific inventions which are now a magical boon to our modern society. On the other hand, some inventions like nuclear war heads, biological and chemical weapons are the great threat to mankind itself. The dark part of these inventions can be regarded as a curse to modern science and inventions. History tells us how in the past biological weapons were used to destroy enemy in mass, a foul play against the mankind, if they found much weaker in defeating them in the battleground. Even in recent years, it is believed that the chemical weapons were used to suppress the Kurd rebels during the Saddam’s regime in Iraq. There was a threat of “Anthrax” attack in USA during this period too. The world has also witnessed horrific devastation and mass destruction caused by nuclear weapon during World War II, a heinous attack by the USA on Nagasaki and Hiroshima (Japan) during the last stage of the war (August, 1945). The two beautiful cities were turned into graveyard within three minutes of destruction of atomic bomb. Despite of all heavy security measures, 9/11 witnessed collapse of twin towers, a modern threat of terrorism.

Life is precise and valuable, so, since the origin of the evolution process until our time, we always consider that life is more important than any other means. Our prime action is always focused to save the life and maintain peace among the mankind. Thus security of man is taken as one of the key factor to define the term security as a security of man. Every individual and every country always remains in a security threat from man itself. Mankind has always struggled for the self defense and to save the life since the origin of evolution.

3. Modern Concept of Security and Man.
The security of a family, society and nation depends upon the tradition or practice as how a man is coped up with the environment according to his natural behavior, understand the needs of time for self governance and safeguard the life. In modern age, from family level to nation as a whole adopts various security measures for a better living environment. Our natural instinct compels us that when we intend to leave our house, we never forget to secure our house properly. Similarly, every house and country is secured with a legal boundary of regulations promulgated by a state law or constitutional reforms. Many wars and battles fought in the past were as a result of hate, revenge, greed, selfishness and barbarism. The consciousness of human rights, when it started to overwhelm human feelings, brought a noble change to the modern society which enabled states to promulgate laws to safeguard the safety and security of weaker sections. We have developed the rule of law to defend the fundamental rights of every human being. We have witnessed the age of barbarians in the past, slavery of human being, unlawful behavior and treatment towards the weaker section of world population. This was the serious threat to all mankind keeping in view of safety and security in those days. Therefore, even in modern days we find smuggling and illegal trafficking of human being from one country to other country which is against mankind. Therefore, maintaining a peace and protection of human rights is also becoming a serious concern in this world.

In order to maintain peace and eliminate disputes among the various countries, a League of Nations was established comprising of few European countries. But, this League of Nations failed due to various circumstances giving a birth of Great 2nd World War. After the failure of League of Nations during early twentieth century, the world faced Great 2nd World War and the consequences of this war showed us the horrific destructions, famines, genocides and loss of huge wealth and lives in this world. Immediately after 2nd World War, United Nations of Organizations (UNO) was born on 24 October 1945. We have now United Nations Organization to keep peace and harmony among the whole population of the world to share equal human rights.

The security of man in other sense according to modern concept is to protect, remain safe peacefully without any threat on his rights and also to prevent from unpredictable threat of nature. Human being has always faced challenges from nature and always threatened by natural disasters like earthquakes, eruption of volcanoes, floods, fires, tsunamis and many other natural calamities like drought and famines. Therefore, human being always needs to face all these challenges. Just few days before, we had witnessed the horrific earthquake of Haiti. The world is now joining hands to help the earthquake victims. Last year only, with the destructive earthquake of China, we all united to face the challenge and world showed solidarity in helping mankind. Thus, the concept of security of man means the security of mankind in all aspects. Various organizations like Red Cross Societies, Oxfam, Green Peace Movement and other programs led by UNO for the welfare of mankind and many other organizations are organized to help the poor and effected population when needs arise. We have now many organized preventive instruments and solutions to safeguard the mankind.

4. Security of Material.
Security of material is the second factor in defining security concept as it is always co-existed with the man. The term material includes all sorts of property in any form such as cash, bank deposits, valuable materials or the assets in possession of an individual, society and a country as a whole in a form of asset. Wealth or property is the main cause which leads an unwanted incident of crimes such as theft, burglary, looting, destruction causing a loss of man and material. The root cause of great wars fought in the past shows us that these battles were fought in order to seize wealth and land of others possession. Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and many other invaders went on beyond their country conquering plundering other lands because of wealth and land. In order to loot or seize others possession, human desires always face the risks either to capture or safeguarding the possession. Material security since the dawn of civilization is a threat to mankind. Incident of 9/11 which was an unbelievable disaster is a kind of material destruction. Material destruction has the risk of life as well. The commuters aim to gain the material benefit in possession, but, in fact, it always goes against human lives. Therefore, the term material according to security sense includes all aspects of property in any form including human lives.

5. Historical back ground with regard to Security of Material.
Right from the days of Alexander the Great (an emperor from Greek), Julius Caesar the Great (Roman emperor) and Genghis Khan the Great (Mongolian emperor), all these invaders conquered most part of the globe in their times were due to the attraction of wealth and prosperity of land. For several centuries Arabs were in a series of conquest to India due to its huge possession of wealth within Indian States in those days. India once, during her golden era, famed to be the living nest of the golden birds. History tells us how the temple of Somnath (Now in Gujarat, India) was sacked for seventeen times with a brutal attack by the rulers of Ghazani and Arabs. The motive behind attacking the temple was to loot the valuable booty kept inside the temple. In those days the people of India were in a trend to offer and keep their wealth in a temple according to their religious belief.

Material in security sense, in a wider sense not only covers the valuables considered to be wealth, it also includes all the destructive agents of NBC as well. Since the making of destructive weaponry from time immemorial, we find that many dangerous weapons in many forms have been invented. During the Gupta Era which considered as Golden Period of the Indian History, we find that human beings were used as a weapon to kill the powerful enemies. In those days, “Vish (Vikh) Kanya” “Poisonous Girls” were processed with a technique of snake biting from poisonous snakes from very young. The girls selected for that kind of purpose were very beautiful and it has illustrated by the historians that even a single stroke of kiss by these poisonous “Vikh Kanyas” could kill a strong man with sound health. These human weapons were used to kill powerful enemies in those days. The beautiful girls could attract and lure sexually to any male enemy and finally giving a killing stroke. In later stage, it had developed an adverse effect for the society and mankind as a whole. Centuries later, the trend was abolished. So, the material in security concept includes both mankind and possessions either destructive agents or wealth as well.

6. Modern concept of material and security.
In order to maintain a safe and security environment, we have various means of safety and security measures in modern days. In ancient times, a great barrier was constructed as a safety and security measure of the empire and its people to protect from external aggression by the first Great Emperor of China by constructing a huge “The Great of Wall of China”. In comparison to those days, we have now in our modern days, many means of tools to safeguard the material through modern technologies. We find many great snowy mountains, rivers, great deserts and oceans which play as a natural barrier to outsiders in many areas of the globe. However, the invaders always invaded and explored the countries in many ways in the past. In addition to modern technology and natural barriers, we have physical features like walls, bollards, fences, barriers made by human being for safeguarding the materials. These are the means of security and safety of material of our time. In modern days, we have many sophisticated advanced computerized devices, tools which enable us to keep the safety and security of material smoothly. The world of modern science with its electronic devices each and every thing became possible and we are now conquering the universe and whole solar system through these scientific inventions. We are not only aware of the security system of modern age, we have also developed various ways of precautions, procedures through the centuries experiments in dealing and handling with emergency in the event of any unwanted security threat for the security of material.

7. Security of Information.
As defined in preceding paragraphs, security of man and material always co-existed and move together. The most important factor to unify these two elements is information. Without any source of information we can’t even imagine to explain the concept of the man and material into a broader definition of security concept. All the information expressed in this article is also based from the information outlined in the books and obtained through many sources of information. Information in many ages played vital role in creating and recording historical facts. The historical records are based on the information and facts recorded in a particular period with a proof of evidence. Raise and downfall of a nation is always based on a strong government policy and its governing bodies. Information system plays eminent role to build up an effective administration system to maintain law and order. Every nation has got their information network expanding as a global network. World renowned security networks such as FBI, CIA, CID, RAW, ISI and KGB are active in various parts of the world for security reasons. These agents operating in various parts of the globe, almost in every nation, have their objective to secure their country and rule the world. Cold war and diplomatic relations were always maintained on the information provided by these security agents in the past and still the trend is running on.

The current information of hot topic is to wipe out and disarm mass destruction weapons from some countries and to suppress the terrorism. The restriction and disarming program of mass destruction weaponry by the United Nations against some countries was also based on the information collected from various security agents that the countries are trying to attain to become an atomic power which in fact is a threat to other powerful nations. The information in modern world is not complicated and is becoming more smooth because of modern scientific technologies.

If we look back, in ancient time, the great epics of Hindus “Mahabharata” tells us how Kaurava conspired to kill Pandavas while on sleep in a Wax House (Laha House) built near the river Ganges. The confidential information through a reliable source saved their lives in the nick of time. The great epic “Ramayana” tells us that a reliable information was given by Bhibishana, brother of Ravana with regard to the secrecy of Ravana’s death to Rama when Rama was not able to kill Ravana in the battleground. Eventually Rama was able to kill Ravana due to the secret cause of death received from Bhibishana. Right from the epic age to modern age, information plays the vital role in every walk of life. The importance of information in modern days has a tremendous influence on every aspect of global activities. The world is now turning towards a global village due to the modern scientific inventions. We are now able to get reliable information within friction of seconds from different corner of the world. Computer science has given us a lot of ideas and benefits with its advanced information technology and day by day, modern scientists are inventing unbelievable scientific inventions. All these inventions can only be possible because of the information and facts received from the reliable sources.

The information of security always influences our day to day life. We can’t even operate any electronic computerized device unless you get the information or ‘code’ to operate the particular device and breach of information regarding the ‘code’ may lead an adverse effect to the organization. Everywhere you need the “pass” or “code” to run your electronic devices. This is how modern science has developed with electronic developments and inventions. You can predict future weather through modern forecasting information technology and we get forthcoming weather changes information through broadcasting media from TV, newspapers and Radios which we feel safe and secured. Any breach of security information is the most danger and serious concern for an individual to a nation and even a global threat. Finally, I would like to mention here we should always be seriously concerned with security of man, material and information.
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