Inadequate socio-economic development, apathy towards the genuine grievances of the people, political brinkmanship amongst other reasons, has created internal contradictions, which have led to decades of internal strife. 

India does not face an external threat in the conventional sense, but only internal security threats from external sources. These external sources, consist of both state and non-state actors, combined with those anti-state forces within India, have made the situation more intricate.

Role of State actors -

State actors are based on the premise of sovereignty, recognition of statehood and control of territory & population. e.g. India, Pakistan, China, U.S.A.

Role of Pakistan

  • Through its nexus with the Taliban and Jihadi elements, as well as its involvement in religious extremism, international terrorism and the narcotics trade, Pakistan poses a threat not only to India but to the stability of the region as well.
  • The issues in Jammu and Kashmir and Terrorism in the hinterland are a direct manifestation of
  • Pakistan's influence. It is part of Pakistan's state policy to bleed India through a thousand cuts,
  • given its obvious disadvantages on the conventional war ϐighting front.
  • The use of non-state actors is essentially the employment of a proxy element, which gives the
    state of Pakistan a     state of Pakistan a degree of deniability.
  • In the North-East, Pakistan’s ISI has trained and financially supported groups such as ULFA.
  • Flooding the border states with drugs so as to destroy the youth of India and produce unrest in the country.
  • Indulge in complex cyber attacks on Indian companies, government websites and databases.

Role of China

  • Apart from the Nagas, the Chinese also extended moral and material support to the Mizo and Meiti insurgents by arranging for their training in guerilla warfare and subversion in training centers in Yunan province of mainland China and Lhasa in Tibet. In the past Chinese arms manufacturer, NORINCO had been linked with North Eastern extremist groups. The arms manufacturer has been supplying arms to ULFA, and NSCN-IM.
  • China has built a relationship of convenience and an alliance of opportunism between China and Indian militant groups. For example, the Maoist movement got its philosophical, moral, financial support from China.
  • China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which connects Xinxiang with Gwadar port passes through Pakistani Occupied Kashmir and undermines Indian sovereignty over the region. and intellectual support from China.


Bangladesh

  • The porosity of the Indo-Bangladesh border has led to many unanticipated problems for India.
  • Bangladesh acts as a safe house to terrorists. During the Khalida Zia regime, DGFI (Bangladesh’s intelligence agency) also used to support insurgent groups in the North-East.
  • Illegal Migration from Bangladesh to North-Eastern states has been the source of communal and ethnic tension in India, resulting in large scale demographic changes in the North-East region
  • International terrorist groups like al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have lately focused their attention on the region. Bangladesh has seen a number of terrorist acts in recent times in the form of killing of secular bloggers and liberals purportedly by ISIS or local extremist groups such as Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) which draw their inspiration from global Islamism.

  • As the extremism grows in Bangladesh, its demonstration effect may lead to increased infusion of fundamentalist ideologies on religious grounds in neighboring Indian states as well, which may manifest in radicalization of youth.

Myanmar

  • India shares a 1670 km long land border and a maritime border of 200 km with Myanmar.
  • Some Burmese tribals belonging to the Kuki Chin Group are fighting for merger of lands inhabited by them with India.
  • The Myanmarese rebels ensure that drugs are brought under their protection up to the Tamu on the Indo-Myanmar border and also up to the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. The Indian insurgent groups and the Bangladesh syndicates take over from these locations and thereafter push the drugs inland.

Non State actors

Act of Terrorism, insurgency, or extremism by any individual or a group which have no direct or indirect linkages with any government or any government organization, is said to be done by non-state actors.

The emergence of non-state terrorist actors and the rise of their international influence is accelerating. Much of their activity is clandestine and outside the accepted international norms. International and state-sponsored terrorism, often motivated by fundamentalist ideologies, backed by secretive but efficient financial networks, use of IT, clandestine access to chemical-biological and nuclear materials, and illicit drug trafficking has emerged as a major threat to international stability.

Threats posed by them to the internal security of India:

  • Drug Trafficking: Proximity to the largest producers of heroin and hashish-the Golden Triangle
    and Golden Crescent     and Golden Crescent (Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran) -has made India's border vulnerable to drug trafficking. Trafficking of drugs takes place overwhelmingly through land borders followed by sea and air routes.
  • Human Trafficking: Human trafficking in India, although illegal under Indian law, remains a
    significant problem. People are frequently illegally trafϐicked through India for the purposes of
    commercial sexual exploitation and forced/bonded labour.
  • Left-Wing Extremism: It is one of the major security threats faced by the nation, which prevents
    developmental processes in the least developed regions of the country and misguide the people
    through its propaganda.
  • Insurgency in the Northeast: Inter-tribal conϐlicts, unemployed youth, illegal migration from
    across the border has provided a breeding ground for non-state actors to run insurgency like an
    industry in the region.
  • Terrorism: South Asia Terrorism Portal has listed 180 terrorist groups that have operated within India over the last 20 years, many of them co-listed as transnational terror networks operating in or from the neighboring South-Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
  • Civil Society Organisations: Serious charges of misuse and misappropriation of funds received as grants-in-aid from governments, foreign donors and their involvement in riling up discontentment in the local communities against developmental projects has raised questions on these organisations working as foreign policy tool of foreign governments.
  • Cyber Attacks: India’s exponential growth in the IT sector and various e-governance measures make it extra vulnerable to such attacks. Eg: the 2010 Commonwealth Games hosted by India witnessed Cyber attacks from Pakistan & China to damage information systems.