Internal Security

India’s Internal Security: Role of State Governments

Publisher: Pentagon Press

While it is a common knowledge that the Union government has been primarily responsible for maintaining the security of the country, the state governments have also played an important role ensuring public order and security of the citizens. It is said that every conflict starts at the micro level, but if not addressed effectively at that level, it has the potential to blow up and manifest itself as a severe security threat for the entire country. In this respect, various affected state governments in India have attempted to resolve conflicts and build peace at the ground level. While some of these attempts have been successful others have not accomplished the desired results. The book analyses the experiences of six selected states in their efforts to deal with insurgencies and establish sustainable peace. By doing so, it brings to the fore the important role played by state governments in tackling various internal security threats and maintaining peace and order in the country. The book argues in favour of the necessity to consider state governments as a prominent component in India’s conflict resolution and peace building architecture.

ISBN: 9788196872205,
Price: Price: ₹ 1295/-
E-copy available

Publisher: KW Publishers

This book attempts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances which have shaped India’s approach towards its international borders and the framework it has developed to better manage its borders. The book argues that persistence of various cross-border threats and challenges and an absence of robust intra-regional trade among its neighbouring countries forced India to employ a security-centric and unilateral approach to border management with emphasis on hardening the borders to cross-border trade and travel and keeping the border areas underdeveloped to act as a buffer against external conventional threats. However, as India’s economy grew and the country gained more confidence and resources, India started perceiving the borders as bridges rather than barriers. Consequently, greater emphasis was being laid on development of border areas and restoring severed lines of communication with its neighbours through increased investments in building transportation networks both within the border as well as beyond. It also started constructively engaging its neighbours to effectively manage its international borders. Besides discussing the threats and challenges that India faces along the borders, the book aims to develop an understanding of India’s border management practices by analysing various programmes and initiatives such as the raising of border guarding forces; building of physical and electronic fences; the establishment of modern facilities for smoothening legitimate cross-border travel; the development of the border areas through special programmes; and increasing trade and connectivity as well as other cooperative bilateral mechanisms.

ISBN: 9789391490003 ,
Price: ₹. 1088/-
E-copy available

Publisher: Pentagon Press

This anthology of essays traverses a wide range of issues exploring the inconsistencies in the global war on terror, and brings together diverse perspectives from eminent academia, practitioners, technologists and civil society from Asia. It takes the conversation beyond the academic realm by delving into first person accounts from authors who are living and fighting terrorism in the heart of conflict zones in the region.

ISBN: 978-93-86618-81-8,
Price: ₹.1245/-
E-copy available

Changed Security Situation in Jammu and Kashmir : The Road Ahead

The only way forward for India, therefore, is to decouple the Kashmir issue from that of Pakistan, and address the internal aspects: Kashmir's development, unsettled political issues, healing the wounds and alienation of the youth, promptly.

Culture, Context and Capability: American and Indian Counterinsurgency Approaches

This monograph is an attempt to examine American and Indian counterinsurgency experiences through the lens of historical context, organizational culture, and military capability.

Illegal Migration From Bangladesh: Deportation, Border Fences and Work Permits

This monograph examines the Indian government’s perspective on the issue of infiltration/illegal from Bangladesh. It analyses the socio-economic and political impact of the presence of a large number of illegal Bangladeshi migrants on the receiving societies within India.

Publisher: Pentagon Press

Bringing about change in any setup, especially major shifts, is a challenges. This challenges is accentuated further in a strictly hierarchical organisation like the army, presenting an unenviable contradiction to both senior military practitioner and the governing elite, wherein, change is inevitable, yet, it is most likely to be resisted.

ISBN 978-81-8274-919-1,
Price: ₹. 795
E-copy available

Publisher: Pentagon Press

Under the US leadership, the international community has been fighting the war on global terrorism for the past decade and a half. Strategies and targets have undergone several changes in this war, but terrorism continues to show no signs of decline. It continues to pose a major security challenge to world order and stability. Concrete and chilling evidence for this was provided by the recent attacks in Paris, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Kunduz, Kabul, Peshawar and Pathankot. The list is indeed long and extensive to be fully recorded here. During the first 15 days of 2016, one website records 17 terrorist attacks in different parts of the world.
E-Copy available

ISBN 978-81-8274-885-9,
Price: ₹. 1295.00
E-copy available

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing India

Terrorism finance has aptly been termed as the lifeblood of terrorism. Yet, this remains one of the most under researched facets of terrorism. This limitation is even more apparent in the Indian context, despite the fact that the country has faced the scrouge of terrorism and insurgency for over five decades. Lifeblood of Terrorism: Countering Terrorism Finance, is the first book on the subject in an Indian context.

ISBN 978-93-84052-18-8,
Price: ₹. 599/-
E-copy available

Publisher: Pentagon Press

The proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist), Maoists in short, also known in India as Naxalites, is the most lethal and largest of all such groups. Its ultimate aim is to capture/seize political/state power through protracted people’s war (PPW), on the lines propounded by Mao Tse Tung.

ISBN 978-81-8274-801-9,
Price: ₹. 1295/-
E-copy available

Internal Security: A Psychological Approach by Major General Sanjay Bhide

In the larger national strategic discourse, identifying and prioritising the internal security issues and challenges is very crucial. India has been grappling with multiple ‘identity-centric’ and ‘grievance-driven’ challenges that have impacted its security and national fabric for more than seven decades now. While there is no gainsaying that the country has been largely successful in managing these conflicts well below the threshold levels, a durable peace—a prerequisite for national security and development—is as elusive as ever in most of these conflicts.

Natallia Khaniejo
July-December 2016
CBW Magazine

Forgotten Kashmir: The Other Side of the Line of Control

The political dispute over the territory of Kashmir is an intricate problem confronting the modern South Asian leadership. The intricacies of the conflict have led to voluminous writings on the region and evident from them is a greater focus on Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) as compared to the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The ‘escape’ of Pakistan–occupied Kashmir from the scholarly radar has begun to change only recently.

Secure Through Development: Evaluation of India’s Border Area Development Programme

The Border Area Development Programme was initiated in the year 1986–87, to strengthen India’s security by ensuring developed and secure borders. Initially, the programme was implemented in the western border states to facilitate deployment of the Border Security Force. Later, the geographical and functional scope of the programme was widened to include eastern and northern sectors of India’s borders and as well as socio-economic aspects such as education, health, agriculture and other allied sectors. But, it is difficult to say that the implementation has been uniform in all the sectors.

N. Manoharan , Depak Saravanan , Vasvi Saini
January 2020
Strategic Analysis

Deepening Critical Infrastructures in Northeast India: People’s Perspective and Policy Implications

Northeast India continues to be an industrially underdeveloped and infrastructurally deficient region. The poor condition of infrastructure in the region demands serious attention. Studies in the region reveal that a people’s perspective of development, i.e., roads, electricity, telecommunications and water, falls rightly within the ambit of critical infrastructure. Critical infrastructure is directly linked to economic development, national security, access and availability of educational and health infrastructure.

Ladakh: India’s Gateway to Central Asia

Ladakh is one of the largest administrative units in India, in terms of its territory. Due to its contiguity with Xinjiang and Tibet and its close proximity to Central Asia, and enjoying a central position in the network of overland caravan routes that were linked to the Silk Route, Ladakh acted as an important gateway in the Indo-Central Asian exchange of men, materials and ideas through the ages.

Terrorism Can and Should be Defined. But How?

The debate over what constitutes terrorism spans a wide, diverse and largely a competing body of intellectual strands. In particular, the lack of consensus on the need (or otherwise) for a universally acceptable definition or no definition at all characterizes the discursive dynamics of the definitional subfield. Conversely, there is a persistent tendency of circumspection to embrace methodologies, e.g. case study frameworks, that can prove to be more helpful in conceptualizing terrorism.

Ethnicity and Violent Conflicts in Northeast India: Analysing the Trends

This article is a moderate attempt to understand the various ideas associated with ethnicity and ethnic conflicts, and to study the nature, trends and typology of ethnic and insurgent conflicts in the North East Indian states (viz. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura) from 1990 to 2016, using the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset.

Power Trading and National Security

Power trading across borders is not a new concept, even in the subcontinent. However, it has been sporadic and unstructured and often not in strict consonance with the requirements of national security. This article seeks to make out a case for using energy security and cross border power trade, as one of the ‘soft power’ tools to further our national security.

Human Security Approach to Internal Security: Case Study of Reconciliation and Insurgency in Tamenglong, Manipur

Human security as a concept contends that the appropriate referent for peace and security should be the individual instead of the state. This Essay explores whether a human security-centred approach, i.e., a focus on the individual citizen’s concerns and security complements rather than contradicts state and national security.

Bodo, Karbi and Dimasa Peace Agreements in Assam: An Analysis

The Assam peace agreements have not conclusively resolved the demands for a separate state—the root cause of the insurgencies.

Pushpita Das
October 23, 2024
Issue Brief

Vibrant Village Programme: A Focussed Attempt to Develop Border Areas?

The Vibrant Village Programme (VVP) is a centrally sponsored scheme aimed at developing remote villages along India’s northern borders.

Pushpita Das
August 28, 2024
Issue Brief

The Khalistan Movement in Canada: A Political Consensus

Since the early 1980s, the Canadian political landscape, irrespective of the political parties in power, has been permissive, if not sympathetic, to the Khalistan movement.

Antarctica: The Icy Continent and Indian Engagements

India’s continuous and growing presence in Antarctica is in accordance with its commitment to science and protection of fragile Antarctic ecosystems.

The North Eastern Council and PM-DevINE

The development needs of the NER States and security imperatives should be suitably factored in the PM-DevINE scheme.

Gautam Sen
February 16, 2024
IDSA Comments

Misogyny, Violent Extremism and National Security

States must recognise that acts of violence against women are inextricably linked with other forms of extremism.

Sia Jyoti
February 12, 2024
Issue Brief

Free Movement Regime: A Unique Feature of the India-Myanmar Border

While the free movement regime did facilitate the hill tribes to maintain cross-border links, it also allowed insurgents and traffickers to freely enter and exit the country.

Pushpita Das
January 17, 2024
IDSA Comments

China’s Territorial Claim on Arunachal Pradesh: Alternative Scenarios 2032

This Occasional Paper analyzes the Chinese territorial claim from futuristic perspective by identifying three drivers of uncertainty that has bearing on future Chinese behaviour, namely, Chinese regime stability and nationalism; the Tibet factor and internal developments in Arunachal Pradesh. Based on the interactive interplay between the three drivers, the author offers four alternative scenarios with regard to China's territorial claim in 2032.

Looking “East” Through India’s North East: Identifying Policy “Challenges” and Outlining the “Responses”

This paper throws light on challenges like lack of infrastructure, crisis of insurgency, the disjuncture between the elites and the social base in the North East regarding the “Look East” policy, and the states' incapacities during the implementation process of this policy.

Drug Trafficking in India: A Case for Border Security

Trafficking of drugs takes place overwhelmingly through land borders followed by sea and air routes. Given the vulnerability of the borders to drug trafficking, India has tried to tackle the problem through the strategy of drug supply and demand reduction, which involves enacting laws, co-operating with voluntary organisations, securing its borders and coasts by increasing surveillance, as well as seeking the active cooperation of its neighbours and the international community.