Role of Rural Local Governments in Addressing Human Security:  Case Study of Muthugapatti Village, Tamil Nadu

Human security is a fairly recent concept dating back to the mid-1990s when the United Nations Human Development Report (UNDP) came up with a new paradigm explaining the importance of security for the humans apart from the State.Since then, state actors have imbibed this concept into their understanding of security as one of 'human centric' in nature and have also given a constitutional backing for its implementation.In India, constitutionally-empowered rural local selfgovernments ('Panchayats') with extensive powers govern rural areas, which contain 3/4 th of the country's total population.Panchayats, being grassroots level governments that are in the closest proximity to the public, are essential in ensuring Human Security of the citizens.This article takes an in-depth approach to explore how proactive leadership and able governance of local government institutions can address human security issues at grassroots level through a case study of the village of Muthugapatti in the Namakkal District of Tamil Nadu.This is done first by conceptualizing human security issues and then analyzing the initiatives taken by the Village Panchayat along different aspects of human security issues using a wide range of primary data collected through field study.