Security: Elusive Last Mile

Context: Developments in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) are a grim pointer to India’s rapidly deteriorating security environment, underlining an urgent need to prioritise national security, regardless of the political cost.

Security Challenges before India

• All threats ranging from conventional to non-conventional, are active in India:
  • Probable conventional military battle due to sudden escalation in J&K proxy war or a terror attack in hinterland.
  • Another form of instability is an uptick in northeast insurgency
• Overstretched India’s defence and paramilitary forces:
  • Army is stretched, fully deployed on the Line of Actual Control (LoAC) against Chinese forces besides its duties on the Line of Control (LoC) and the northeast.
  • Forces like the CRPF are deployed in J&K, Naxal areas and on the Assam-Mizoram border.
• Recurrent internal law and order challenges are on ‘red alert’ mode like clashes between the two states’ police forces, farmer’s protests & perennial Naxal question.
• Unpredictable nature of Chinese threat keeps the possibility of a border conflict high. Even if it’s localised and short, it does not alter the level of military preparedness from an Indian perspective.
• Emboldened Pakistani military and deep State with its success in Afghanistan are back to doing dangerous business on India’s border with new operatives and assets.
• Re-emergence of old fault-lines of Sikh extremism and ethnic strife in the northeast complicates the national security picture, and fuel further uncertainty. This is happening due to
  • Divisions within the farmers’ movement and reassertion of extremists among Nagas, Mizos and other groups in North East.
• Unfavourable geopolitical situation underlined by active Sino-Pak collusion across sectors, withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan and resurgence of Islamic radicalism worsens the security trend.
• Covid-19 and consequential economic setback, makes the Indian sub-continent a potentially explosive security hot spot.
• Post-Article 370 security transitions have not fully come into effect due to credibility and rivalry within the J&K administration, police, and agencies.
  • Bureaucrats, including an ex-adviser to J&K lieutenant governor, who made out orders implementing the transition in 2019, are now under probe in other cases.
• Shadow over much-needed structural reforms due to ugly row over restructuring military commands into inter-service theatre commands has not only cast a long but also brought to the fore rivalry that only ruptures the cohesion needed to take on the uncertainties ahead.

Way forward

• Develop a cohesive approach on national security across political, administrative, military and intelligence agencies.
• Ceasefire with Pakistan has to be revisited in the light of the Poonch infiltration.
• Place a new security apparatus system along LoC and the international border.
• Political process in J&K should reach its logical conclusion as early as possible.