India today is in the fortunate position of facing no existential threat to its security. In that respect India is better placed today than it was in the past. But this cannot obscure the fact that the international environment in which India makes its foreign policy and national security decisions has worsened recently.
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Recent Developments Recent Regional Dimensions Most external threats emanate from an unsettled boundary dispute with China and ongoing cross-border jihadi terrorism in J&K-a sponsored terrorism, supported by ISI and Pakistan-based Islamist fundamentalist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad who, in turn, are inextricably linked with international jihadi groups like Taliban and Al Qaida. (a) Threat from Bangladesh Threat from Bangladesh assumes serious dimensions since it became a base for northeast insurgent groups like ULFA and Naga factions. Of late, it has also been serving as a conduit for ISI sponsored infiltration of terrorists along India and Bangladesh’s porous border. (b) Rise of Chinese Jingoism The rise of China, and its quest for primacy, first in Asia and then globally, and its hierarchical view of an international order centered on itself, epitomised by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), pose a new set of questions and challenges to the established order and to Western supremacy. China now uses economic means, such as the BRI infrastructure programme, to pursue geopolitical outcomes. In effect, economics and politics are no longer separate in today’s world. Indeed, politics may now be driving economics. (c) Cross Border Terrorism India’s real threats to national security today are internal, but with strong external linkages. Cross-border terrorism from Pakistan, and the corrosive effect that extremism and radicalism can have on a plural and diverse society like India’s, are today a major security concern. (d) Crisis in West Asia The situation in West Asia, which has deteriorated over the last decade, is further fuelling terrorist, extremist and radical religious forces in the subcontinent. The main danger to India’s security is the al-Qaeda and ISIS campaigns in the Indian subcontinent. (e) China-Pakistan Nuclear Nexus The China-Pakistan nuclear nexus has come to stay and is a source of constant threat to Indian security. The real problem lies in the intention of a nuclear-capable nation, in that whether it seeks to use nuclear fuel in its reactors to produce clean environment-friendly nuclear energy for economic development or it has designs to reprocess spent fuel for use of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. |
An overarching framework of India’s national security has to take cognisance of military and non-military dimensions in term of both external threats and internal challenges to its territorial integrity and national unity.
Rising Threats to Our Security
(a) Pakistan and Non-State Actors
If we divide the internal security challenges into four main groups, to include, Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast India, Left Wing Extremism and Terrorism in the hinterland, then the first and the last are a direct manifestation of Pakistani influence. It is part of Pakistan’s state policy to ‘bleed India through a thousand cuts’, given its obvious disadvantages on the conventional war fighting front.
The Use of Non-State Actors
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Jihadi Terrorism The jihadi threat to India originates from six sources:
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(b) Rohingyas and Terror Threat
