Dse :

Unit 1: India’s Security Policy: A Historical Perspective

● India’s traditional security challenges have been shaped by colonial legacies, partition,
wars with neighbors, and the geopolitics of the Cold War and post-Cold War world.
These challenges continue to evolve amid new technological and regional shifts.
● India’s strategic behavior has been historically constrained by its colonial inheritance
and its elite’s commitment to moral internationalism.” — Raju G.C. Thomas
● The trajectory of India’s national security policy has been deeply shaped by the
legacies of colonialism, the trauma of Partition, and the geopolitical upheavals of the
Cold War and post-Cold War eras. Far from being merely reactive or episodic, India’s
traditional security challenges—encompassing military threats, territorial disputes,
border conflicts, and state-centric rivalries—reflect a complex interaction between
inherited vulnerabilities and evolving strategic consciousness. The study of India’s
traditional security concerns through a historical lens not only enables a critical
engagement with the state’s strategic behavior but also reveals the persistent gaps
between policy rhetoric and institutional preparedness.
● Far from being merely reactive or episodic, India’s traditional security challenges—
encompassing military threats, territorial disputes, border conflicts, and state-centric
rivalries—reflect a complex interaction between inherited vulnerabilities and evolving
strategic consciousness.
●
● Colonial cartographies and administrative structures played a pivotal role in shaping
the foundational dilemmas of India’s post-independence security policy. As Sanjay
Chaturvedi notes, the legacy of colonial geopolitics continues to haunt India’s nation-
state project, with border demarcations such as those with Pakistan and China
remaining intentionally ambiguous and strategically destabilizing. The British Empire’s
preoccupation with imperial frontiers over national integrity ensured that India
inherited a brittle, externally oriented military structure, more suited to controlling
subjects than defending sovereign boundaries.
● India’s post-independence strategic landscape was deeply marked by its colonial
inheritance—a legacy not only of institutional discontinuity but of conceptual
disarmament. The British Empire had designed India’s military and geopolitical
infrastructure for the purpose of imperial expansion and internal control, not for the
autonomous defense of a sovereign nation-state. As a result, at the moment of
independence in 1947, India inherited a disarmed strategic culture—one where the
logic of national defense, border security, and external threat perception had not been
cultivated within the indigenous political elite or military leadership.
● Sanjay Chaturvedi provides a powerful critique of this inherited condition through his
analysis of “colonial cartographic imagination,” noting that the arbitrary and self-
serving nature of British border-making has had enduring consequences for India's
postcolonial security dilemmas. The ambiguous boundaries drawn with Tibet (now
China)and Pakistan, especially in the North-West Frontier and the Northeast, left
India with volatile frontiers and unresolved territorial claims. For instance, the
McMahon Line, drawn during the 1914 Simla Convention without Chinese concurrence,
would later become a key flashpoint in the Sino-Indian War of 1962. Similarly, the
 Radcliffe Line, hastily drawn and poorly informed by local demographic complexities,
would ensure a perpetual contest over Kashmir, thereby embedding insecurity into
India’s very cartographic foundation.
● David Malone underscores how the Partition of India not only fragmented the
subcontinent politically but also deprived India of strategic depth—particularly in the
West, where access to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf was severed. The creation of
Pakistan also created a new kind of existential security dilemma rooted in religion,
ideology, and identity. As Malone observes, "India's vulnerability was not only
geographic but psychological, a condition exacerbated by the sudden truncation of its
imagined strategic space" (Does the Elephant Dance, 2011).
● From a domestic standpoint, the weakness of India’s early strategic institutions
compounded these challenges. Despite its aspirations for peace and moral leadership
in world affairs, India’s initial restraint was as much a product of institutional
under-preparedness as it was of Nehruvian idealism. The 1947–48 war in Kashmir,
fought with a hastily reorganized army and an ambiguous political strategy, revealed
the lack of a coherent military doctrine. L.P. Singh argues that India failed to "learn
the lessons of history" and allowed a culture of strategic complacency to take root. As
he notes, "We have not made a serious effort to develop an indigenous strategic
tradition, nor have we examined with clarity the failures of the past" (Securing India’s
Future in the New Millennium, 1999).
● Thus, India’s traditional security challenges were not born solely out of postcolonial
rivalries; they were deeply embedded in colonial legacies that produced ambiguous
borders, weak institutions, and a strategic vacuum. Recognizing this inheritance is
essential to understanding why India’s security policy often oscillates between
pragmatic reaction and philosophical restraint, without ever fully settling into a
coherent doctrine.
● The Partition of India in 1947 was not merely a political division; it was a strategic
rupture that fundamentally reshaped the subcontinent’s security architecture. It
introduced a hostile neighborhood, territorial disputes, and demographic
upheaval, all of which continue to define India’s traditional security anxieties. The
newly created state of Pakistan, forged in opposition to Indian nationalism, quickly
became a perennial security adversary. Moreover, the hasty and violent nature of
Partition left India with unfinished borders, divided communities, and the Kashmir
conflict—a territorial dispute that would trigger multiple wars and entrench militarized
nationalism on both sides.
● David Malone captures the essence of this geopolitical trauma, noting that “Partition
has defined not only India’s physical vulnerability but also its strategic psychology”
(Does the Elephant Dance, 2011). India’s strategic depth—particularly in the west—was
lost, and what remained was an adversarial frontier constantly prone to infiltration,
insurgency, and war. Within months of independence, India found itself in a war over
Jammu and Kashmir, after Pakistan-backed tribal militias invaded the princely state in
October 1947. The Indian decision to airlift troops to Srinagar, followed by the
controversial reference to the United Nations, marked the beginning of a long-term
security entanglement, shaped more by reaction than foresight.
● L.P. Singh rightly emphasizes the “lack of strategic anticipation” in the handling of
Kashmir. He argues that the Indian leadership, still steeped in the postcolonial
●

euphoria of peace and non-violence, underestimated the depth of Pakistan’s hostility

and the volatility of frontier politics. The 1947–48 war exposed India's inadequate
military preparednessand the absence of a unified civil-military decision-making
mechanism—a weakness that would continue into the 1962 debacle with China. Singh
warns, “It is not enough to secure territory; one must secure strategy, institutions, and
memory.”
● Sumit Ganguly, in The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy, further explains that
Partition not only generated the security threat from Pakistan but also fueled internal
communalism, giving rise to a Hindu-Muslim security dilemmawithin India. This
internal dimension of security—visible in riots, refugee flows, and later in insurgencies
—complicated the neat binary of external versus internal threats. The communal legacy
of Partition created vulnerabilities that adversaries, particularly Pakistan’s intelligence
agencies, would weaponize in Punjab, Kashmir, and beyond.
● Sanjay Chaturvedi adds a spatial dimension to the aftermath, arguing that Partition
fractured the subcontinent’s geopolitical unity and gave rise to what he terms
“cartographic anxiety.” The hastily drawn Radcliffe Line not only failed to account for
socio-cultural continuities but also generated enduring zones of contestation, such
as Gurdaspur and the Sylhet region. These ambiguous demarcations would become
perennial flashpoints, undermining efforts at regional cooperation and border
management.
● Ultimately, the aftermath of Partition institutionalized a security-first mindset in the
Indian state, but without a mature or robust strategic culture. The newly independent
republic inherited not just a divided geography but a divided strategic imagination,
torn between Nehruvian idealism and the compulsions of militarized realism. The
shadow of Partition continues to loom over India’s traditional security policy—where
national defense, border integrity, and regional dominance are inextricably tied to the
memory of division and the fear of repetition.
● The Indian state's turn toward militarization was not just externally driven, but also a
response to domestic pressure to assert sovereignty.
● The quarter-century following India’s independence was defined by repeated military
confrontations and a gradual shift from strategic restraint to limited strategic
assertion. Between 1947 and 1971, India fought three major wars—with Pakistan
(1947–48, 1965, 1971) and China (1962)—each of which exposed the contradictions in
its evolving security doctrine. This period reveals how India, despite facing existential
security threats, often responded with restraint and ad hocism, shaped by Nehruvian
idealism, a weak institutional defense culture, and the absence of a coherent grand
strategy. However, these wars also catalyzed doctrinal adaptations and contributed
to the emergence of India as a regional military power by 1971.
● India's initial response to conflict in Kashmir in 1947–48 was characterized by moral-
legal idealism. The decision to refer the dispute to the United Nations, even after
military success in the valley, revealed Prime Minister Nehru’s belief in internationalism
and peaceful resolution. Scholars like Sumit Ganguly argue that this act of restraint
was “strategic misjudgment disguised as moral principle,” one that locked India into a
protracted territorial stalemate with Pakistan.
● The ceasefire line (later Line of Control) created a frozen conflict, institutionalizing
Pakistan's claim over Kashmir and allowing future conflict to remain embedded in
●

India’s traditional security landscape.

● However, the most defining moment of strategic failure came during the Sino-Indian
War of 1962. India’s defeat was not merely a battlefield loss; it was a conceptual and
institutional breakdown. Shivshankar Menon contends that India “suffered from a
failure to distinguish political aspiration from strategic capacity”
● Nehru’s Forward Policy—where Indian troops were instructed to occupy forward posts
along the disputed Himalayan frontier—was not backed by logistical or military
preparedness. The Chinese incursion into Arunachal Pradesh (then NEFA) and Ladakh
exposed India’s weak defense planning, intelligence lapses, and the lack of civil-
military synergy.
● This debacle forced India to rethink its doctrine. The post-1962 period saw a
significant increase in defense spending, military modernization, and the expansion
of strategic infrastructure in the Himalayas. It also initiated closer ties with the Soviet
Union, which would become a key supplier of military hardware and diplomatic
support. The 1965 war with Pakistan further tested this new direction. Though
tactically inconclusive, it showed that India was willing to defend territorial
sovereignty with force, especially after Pakistan’s Operation Gibraltar failed to ignite
a Kashmiri uprising. Yet, the return of Haji Pir and other strategic gains in the Tashkent
Agreement again revealed a posture of restrained victory.
● The definitive shift came in 1971, when India decisively intervened in East Pakistan,
following a humanitarian crisis and the influx of nearly 10 million refugees into West
Bengal. Indira Gandhi’s government, under the guidance of General Manekshaw,
conducted a well-coordinated military, diplomatic, and psychological campaign that
led to the creation of Bangladesh. For the first time, India adopted a proactive
security doctrine, aligning military power with political objectives. As Harsh Pant
notes, “1971 was the moment when India moved from the periphery to the center of
South Asian geopolitics. Its restraint was replaced by credible deterrence”. The Simla
Agreement post-1971 attempted to institutionalize peace, but also underscored
India’s strategic confidence. However, India did not follow through with a full
doctrinal overhaul. As L.P. Singh lamented, “We still lacked a national security
doctrine that could convert victory into lasting strategic advantage.”
● The 1990s marked a decisive transformation in India’s national security paradigm. Two
parallel developments—the collapse of the Soviet Union and India’s overt
nuclearization through the Pokhran-II tests in 1998—converged to redefine how
India perceived, articulated, and executed its traditional security objectives. The
emergence of a unipolar world, coupled with a volatile regional environment, forced
India to recalibrate its strategic posture from one of cautious defensiveness to
credible deterrence, backed by evolving doctrines and a nuanced engagement with
global power structures.
● The Pokhran-II nuclear tests in May 1998 represented a watershed moment in India’s
strategic trajectory. These tests were not merely symbolic; they institutionalized a
declaratory policy of deterrence, acknowledging the regional nuclear environment
shaped by China’s nuclear capability and Pakistan’s covert development. As
Shivshankar Menon notes, “India’s decision to go overtly nuclear in 1998 was both a
response to its security environment and a statement of sovereign strategic
autonomy” (India and Asian Geopolitics, 2021). The tests were soon followed by the
 release of India’s Draft Nuclear Doctrine in 1999, emphasizing No First Use (NFU),
massive retaliation, and credible minimum deterrence.
● However, the real test of nuclear deterrence came almost immediately in the form of
the Kargil War (1999). Despite both India and Pakistan being nuclear powers by this
time, the conflict saw limited, high-altitude conventional warfare—a significant
deviation from classical deterrence theory. The Kargil conflict, where Pakistani soldiers
and militants occupied Indian posts in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir, tested
the stability-instability paradox.
● Devin T. Hagerty argue in Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crises in the Shadow of
Nuclear Weapons (2005), “The Kargil War proved that nuclear weapons may deter
total war, but not limited or subconventional conflict.” India, although under a nuclear
overhang, responded with measured conventional force, backed by strategic restraint
and international diplomatic engagement, particularly with the United States.
Meanwhile, India’s post-nuclear diplomacy sought to integrate with the global non-
proliferation regime without compromising strategic autonomy. The Indo-US Civil
Nuclear Agreement (2005) was emblematic of this balancing act. As David Malone
highlights, “India’s successful negotiation of the deal—despite not being a signatory to
the NPT—was a triumph of diplomatic normalization without doctrinal dilution” (Does
the Elephant Dance?, 2011). The agreement underscored India’s image as a
responsible nuclear power, while ensuring access to civilian nuclear technology and
global legitimacy.
● Yet, criticisms remain. Scholars such as Bharat Karnad argue that India’s nuclear
doctrine remains doctrinally conservative and politically cautious, lacking in
operational clarity and plagued by civil-military disconnects. Moreover, despite the
nuclear shield, cross-border terrorism (e.g., the 2001 Indian Parliament attack and
2008 Mumbai attacks) continued, revealing the limits of nuclear deterrence in
addressing asymmetric, non-state threats.
● India’s strategic concerns regarding China, particularly along the northern frontiers,
have been shaped by a complex historical, geographical, and geopolitical context. The
legacy of colonial-era borders, combined with the evolving political dynamics of
modern-day China, has created a volatile security situation for India. The Himalayan
region, especially the regions of Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, remains a locus
of deepening tensions that continue to define India’s security policies. The 1962 Sino-
Indian War marked a watershed moment in India’s security policy, revealing the deep
vulnerabilities that arose from poor preparedness along its northern border. China's
military intervention along the Aksai Chin area, and the subsequent Chinese invasion,
exposed the weakness of India’s defense posture. Shivshankar Menon notes that
India’s strategic restraint, which was often described as Nehruvian idealism, was
also a consequence of the country’s institutional unpreparedness and inadequate
military infrastructure in the face of an expanding and modernizing Chinese military
(India and Asian Geopolitics, 2021). After the war, India was forced to rethink its
approach toward China, realizing that its policy of non-alignment and pacifism would
not deter an assertive neighbor.
● One key outcome of the 1962 war was the realization of India’s vulnerability on the
northern frontiers. The war left a lasting legacy of mistrust and hostility, which shaped
India’s defense policies for decades. For example, Aksai Chinremained under Chinese
●

control, and Arunachal Pradesh continued to be claimed by China, a situation that

created a strategic vulnerability that India has sought to address through various
means, including military modernization, strategic partnerships, and diplomatic
efforts. The Doklam Standoff (2017) and the Galwan Valley clash (2020) have
reinforced the idea that the northern frontiersremain an active flashpoint for India-
China tensions. In Doklam, a plateau that lies at the trijunction between India, China,
and Bhutan, a Chinese road construction project brought India’s military forces into
direct confrontation with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Although the crisis
was resolved diplomatically, it served as a stark reminder of China’s growing
assertiveness in the region and its willingness to challenge India’s influence in areas
traditionally considered India’s sphere of influence. David Malone observes that
China's infrastructure development in Gilgit-Baltistan (part of Pakistan-administered
Kashmir) is part of a broader strategy to bolster its strategic access to the Indian
Ocean and to enhance the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), raising alarms
for India’s national security (Does the Elephant Dance?, 2011).
● The 2020 Galwan Valley clash brought the question of China's military
modernization and its border aggressivenessinto sharper focus. The Chinese
military’s rapid expansion in Tibet, the construction of infrastructure that can
support rapid military mobilization, and the deployment of advanced nuclear-capable
missile systems along the border pose an increasing challenge for India. The Galwan
clash, which resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers, highlighted the need for India
to enhance its military readiness and strategic deterrence capabilities.
● As Sumit Ganguly observes in The Oxford Handbook of Indian Foreign Policy (2015),
the growing strength of China’s military power, combined with its economic clout
and strategic partnerships, especially with Pakistan, has placed India in a difficult
position. The realization that China’s ambitions extend beyond territorial gains and
into a broader geopolitical rivalry is central to understanding India’s evolving
strategic doctrine. Ganguly argues that India’s increasing alignment with countries like
the United States, Japan, and Australia in the Indo-Pacific is a countermeasure to
China’s rising influence. The northern frontiers are especially vulnerable due to
geographical challenges posed by the Himalayan terrain, which complicates military
mobilization. While China has rapidly modernized its military and infrastructure in
Tibet, India has faced delays in improving its infrastructure, particularly in Ladakh and
Arunachal Pradesh. The lack of adequate infrastructure has often been cited as a
factor contributing to India’s strategic vulnerability in the region. In contrast, China's
infrastructure investments and its ability to quickly mobilize forces along the Tibet
Autonomous Region provide it with a distinct military advantage over India.
● This infrastructure gap has spurred India to accelerate projects like the construction
of all-weather roads, airbases, and forward military posts in the region. However, as
L.P. Singh suggests, India’s historical memory of past defeats and its vulnerability on
the northern frontiers remain critical factors in shaping its defense strategy
● India’s security challenges are defined not only by external threats but also by internal
vulnerabilities that have compounded the overall risk to national security. The
internal-external security nexus refers to the interplay between external threats,
like cross-border terrorism, and internal issues, such as communal tensions,
insurgency, and ethnic conflicts. As Sumit Ganguly notes in The Oxford Handbook
 of Indian Foreign Policy (2015), the persistent weakness of the Indian state in regions
like Kashmir, combined with the neighborhood instability resulting from Pakistan’s
long-standing support for non-state actors, has created an environment where
cross-border terrorism finds fertile ground. Terrorism is no longer seen as just an
external threat; it is intrinsically tied to internal political fragmentation and ethnic
fault lines. Ganguly argues that this has exacerbated internal insecurities, with
terrorist groups targeting India’s civilian population and institutions to disrupt
social cohesion and challenge the legitimacy of the state.
● Insurgency movements, particularly in the Northeast and Naxalite-affected areas,
have often been fueled by a combination of domestic grievances (such as economic
underdevelopment, ethnic alienation, and political marginalization) and external
elements like foreign-sponsored radicalism. For instance, the Naga insurgency and
Maoist/Naxalite movements have been influenced not only by internal socio-political
and economic issues but also by cross-border linkages, especially with Bangladesh
and Nepal, where insurgent groups have operated with impunity. The Pakistani role in
supporting separatist movements in Kashmir and the North-East further complicates
India's domestic security by linking regional insurgencies to broader geopolitical
dynamics. This transnational dimension of internal insurgency highlights the hybrid
nature of the challenges India faces, where internal instability is perpetuated by
external interference. In the last two decades, India has increasingly faced what can
be described as hybrid threats, which combine conventional military threats,
asymmetric warfare, terrorism, insurgency, and information warfare. The growing
role of social media in amplifying extremist narratives and mobilizing public
support for both domestic insurgent movements and cross-border terrorist activities
has added a new layer to India’s security challenges. The spread of radical ideologies
through the internet and social media platforms has led to a polarization of public
opinion, especially in communities already facing socio-political marginalization. The
rise of online recruitment by organizations like ISISand Al-Qaeda, and the
radicalization of youth in sensitive regions, has highlighted the increasing importance
of information warfare as a tool of both internal and external actors.
● Pant and Bommakanti (2019) in their analysis of India’s national security challenges
underscore the gaps in India’s homeland security architecture, particularly in
countering this asymmetrical warfare. They argue that while India’s military
response to terrorism has been robust, the state’s internal security apparatus—
comprising agencies like the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the
Intelligence Bureau (IB)—lacks the cohesion and coordination necessary to tackle
the complex nature of these hybrid threats. The failure to bridge the gap between
intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and regional governance structures has left
India vulnerable to terrorist cells operating with external support and internal
complicity.
● The evolution of internal-external linkages can also be seen in how India’s security
policies have shifted. The Kashmir conflict, for example, has been a flashpoint where
internal security concerns (ethnic identity, political autonomy) and external security
challenges (Pakistan’s claims to the region) converge. The militarization of Kashmir,
with the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, is a testament to the compounding
effects of internal and external insecurities. Similarly, the Naxalite insurgency has
 seen increasing internationalization, with links to Maoist groups in Nepal,
Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, contributing to the difficulty of addressing these
insurgencies through domestic mechanisms alone. India's traditional military thinking
often fails to incorporate internal threats as part of external security strategy.
●
● India's national security framework has long been characterized by institutional
fragmentation and a lack of coherent strategic planning, leading to significant gaps in
its security apparatus. These structural inefficiencies have impeded the nation’s ability
to respond effectively to evolving threats, both from within and beyond its borders.
● One of the most prominent issues is the fragmentation within India’s national security
structure. The management of national security has historically been distributed
across several agencies—ranging from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Ministry of
Home Affairs (MHA), and National Security Council (NSC), to the Indian Armed
Forces, Intelligence Bureau (IB), and various state-level agencies. This
fragmentation has often resulted in a lack of coordination between these entities,
hindering unified responses to security challenges. The absence of a centralized body
with the authority to direct all security-related activities has led to disjointed policies
and a reactive, rather than proactive, approach to threats.
● Moreover, India’s national security apparatus suffers from weak institutional memory
and poor strategic planning. The lack of continuity in security policy, combined with
the rapid changes in leadership, has resulted in an inconsistent approach to both
external and internal threats. The absence of a consistent institutional memory has
made it difficult for India to build upon past lessons and refine its strategic posture.
● Additionally, inter-agency coordination remains an unresolved issue. There is a
notable absence of integrated military commands, which is a key feature of many
modern security organizations globally. The Indian military, for example, has
historically operated under a siloed command structure, with little coordination
between the Army, Navy, and Air Force on joint operations.
● India’s strategic thinking has undergone a significant transformation in the 21st
century, shaped by the lessons of its postcolonial history, regional and global
geopolitical flux, and the demands of emerging security challenges. Where earlier
phases were marked by strategic restraint, reactive policymaking, and fragmented
institutional structures, recent years have witnessed a deliberate shift toward assertive
posturing, integrated command structures, and multi-domain preparedness. The 21st
century, particularly post-2014, marks a sharper turn. Strategic thinking has evolved
from a doctrine of restraint to strategic assertiveness, characterized by pre-emptive
strikes (e.g., the Surgical Strikes in 2016 and Balakot Airstrikes in 2019), border
infrastructure development, and a more coercive diplomacy posture.
● Scholars like Harsh Pant and Kartik Bommakanti have noted this shift, emphasizing
that Indian strategy now embraces a forward-leaning military posture, especially along
the Northern frontiers with China. The 2020 Galwan Valley clash acted as a catalyst
for recalibrating military readiness, leading to increased troop mobilization,
modernization, and political resolve to respond with force if necessary. This marks a
significant departure from earlier reactive patterns.
● Another major change is the institutional reform in defense. The creation of the Chief
of Defence Staff (CDS) and steps toward integrated theater commands signal India's
 ●

attempt to overcome the historic siloed functioning of its armed forces. These changes
are direct responses to past critiques, including those by David Malone and Sumit
Ganguly, who argued that fragmented decision-making led to suboptimal security
outcomes.
● Strategic thinking is also expanding to incorporate non-traditional threats—
cybersecurity, space, climate change, and information warfare. This broader
conception of security acknowledges the internal-external nexus described by
Ganguly, where domestic vulnerabilities are exploited by external actors. The hybrid
nature of modern warfare has prompted India to rethink its security architecture
holistically, considering threats that go beyond territorial incursions. Thus, while
India’s current strategic thinking retains the historical memory of colonial vulnerability
and partition trauma, it is increasingly marked by pragmatic, anticipatory, and multi-
dimensional doctrines.

1.3-Conceptualising India's National Security

● In the 21st century, national security is no longer a concept bounded by territorial
sovereignty or conventional military deterrence. It is a multifaceted and continually
evolving framework that encompasses a wide array of traditional and non-traditional
threats, from kinetic warfare and cross-border terrorism to cyber vulnerabilities,
ecological degradation, disinformation campaigns, and public health crises.
Globalization, technological interdependence, and the changing nature of warfare have
fundamentally transformed how states conceive of and pursue national security. For a
diverse, populous, and geopolitically complex country like India, the challenge of
conceptualizing national security lies not merely in responding to these threats but in
defining them coherently in the first place.
● Traditionally, national security has been interpreted through the realist paradigm of
international relations theory, which emphasizes the primacy of state sovereignty, the
anarchic nature of the international system, and the necessity of military strength to
deter aggression and protect national interests. This approach prioritizes external
threats, particularly those posed by hostile state actors or territorial disputes. In the
Indian context, this has historically translated into a strong emphasis on managing
relations with its two nuclear-armed neighbors—Pakistan and China—through a mix of
conventional deterrence, nuclear doctrine, and diplomatic hedging.
● In contrast, non-traditional security frameworks have expanded the definition of
security beyond state survival to include threats to human life and well-being that arise
from sources such as climate change, pandemics, cyber warfare, economic instability,
and social unrest. These frameworks are informed by critical security studies and
human security paradigms, which argue that the referent object of security should
not be the state alone, but also the individual and the community. For India, which
faces challenges like environmental vulnerability, resource scarcity, and internal
insurgencies, these paradigms have increasing relevance, though they remain under-
prioritized in mainstream policy.
● Despite being a regional power with global aspirations, India has not yet adopted a
single, comprehensive National Security Strategy (NSS). Instead, it operates with a
layered, sectoral, and often reactive approach to security—one that lacks formal
articulation but is visible in institutional mechanisms (like the National Security Council
 Secretariat), doctrinal postures (such as No First Use in nuclear policy), and periodic
strategic reviews (e.g., Kargil Review Committee, Naresh Chandra Task Force). The
absence of a codified NSS creates ambiguity about the nation’s long-term strategic
vision, priority-setting, and inter-agency coordination, especially in a time when both
traditional and non-traditional threats increasingly overlap.
● India conceptualizes national security today by synthesizing two pivotal perspectives:
the normative and discursive framework presented by Anshuman Behera and
Areeba Ahsanat Moazzam, and the strategic-practical lens provided by P.S.
Raghavan. Behera and Moazzam argue that India's national security discourse has
evolved from a narrow, state-centric formulation to a more comprehensive paradigm
that includes human and societal security. Raghavan, on the other hand, situates
national security within the pragmatic realm of foreign policy, highlighting how India’s
strategic behavior is influenced by geopolitical calculations, economic dependencies,
and regional dynamics.
● The evolution of national security as a conceptual and practical domain has reflected
broader shifts in international relations theory and global political history. From its
origins in classical realism—which posited a state-centric, power-driven understanding
of security—to the multifaceted lens of critical security studies, the very meaning of
“security” has been repeatedly contested and redefined.
● The classical realist school of international relations, drawing from the foundational
works of Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and later scholars such
as Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth Waltz, conceptualizes the international system as
anarchic, with no central authority above the state. In this world, security is equated
with survival, and states must rely on their own capabilities—primarily military power—
to protect themselves against external threats. The principal referent object of security
in this paradigm is the state, and the primary instruments of ensuring security are
deterrence, alliances, and balance of power mechanisms.
● For realists, national security is about defending territorial integrity, political
sovereignty, and the continuity of state power. Threats are understood to be
external, originating from other states or their proxies. Consequently, military
preparedness, strategic alliances, and nuclear deterrence become the core pillars of
national security strategy.
● This logic has significantly influenced India’s security posture, particularly in the Cold
War period and in its immediate post-independence years. The 1947–48 conflict with
Pakistan over Kashmir, the 1962 war with China, and the wars with Pakistan in 1965
and 1971 were all approached through a realist lens, emphasizing external aggression
and state survival. India’s nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998, its long-standing focus on
conventional deterrence, and its evolving military doctrine (e.g., Cold Start) are
direct continuations of this realist orientation.
● However, realism also had its limitations in the Indian context. Nehru’s initial belief in
moral internationalism, his commitment to non-alignment, and his reluctance to
overtly militarize the Indian state represented a deviation from classical realism.
Nonetheless, when confronted with China’s aggression in 1962, India rapidly shifted
gears, increasing military spending and seeking strategic partnerships (notably with
the Soviet Union), indicating that the realist logic of survival remained latent, even
during India’s normative diplomatic phase.
● Kenneth Waltz's neorealism or structural realism, a refinement of classical realism,
placed emphasis on the structure of the international system rather than the nature of
human beings or state leaders. Waltz argued that the anarchic structure forces all
states to act similarly, regardless of their domestic characteristics. This “structural
imperative” pushes states toward self-help, security maximization, and often, arms
races. The security dilemma—whereby one state’s effort to secure itself makes
others feel insecure—becomes central in neorealist thinking.
● India’s quest for strategic autonomy—whether in the form of the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM), the refusal to join military blocs, or its hedging between global
powers today—can be seen as an attempt to navigate the structural pressures of an
anarchic international system. India’s refusal to become a formal ally of either the
United States or the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and its current balancing act
between Washington and Moscow (and increasingly Beijing), can be read through a
neorealist lens as strategic calculations designed to preserve sovereign agency in a
system of unequal power.
● While realism treats security as an objective condition based on power distribution,
constructivist theorists—notably Alexander Wendt, Peter Katzenstein, and Martha
Finnemore—argue that security is socially constructed. What states perceive as
threats, and how they respond to them, are shaped not solely by material power but by
identity, historical memory, social norms, and cultural understandings. Wendt
famously posited that “anarchy is what states make of it,” challenging the determinism
of realism.
● In the Indian context, constructivism is crucial for understanding how national security
is tied to civilizational identity, postcolonial statehood, and the memory of
partition. India’s strategic behavior has often been influenced by its self-perception
as a peaceful civilization, a leader of the Global South, and a normative power
committed to democracy and pluralism. For instance, its long-standing refusal to sign
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was not simply strategic but also
ideological—reflecting India’s opposition to what it saw as a discriminatory regime
favoring established nuclear powers.
● Constructivist insights also explain why India considers some threats more serious
than others. For example, Pakistanremains a central concern not merely due to its
military capability but due to the symbolic contestation over Kashmir, the legacy of
partition, and the ideological rivalry between a secular democracy and an Islamic
republic. Similarly, China’s assertiveness is seen not just as a material threat, but as a
challenge to India’s regional primacy and civilizational status.
● In the 1990s, security studies underwent a profound transformation as scholars from
the Copenhagen School, Welsh School, and various poststructuralist and feminist
traditions began to question the narrowness of state-centric security paradigms.
● Barry Buzan, a leading thinker from the Copenhagen School, expanded the concept
of security across five sectors: military, political, economic, societal, and
environmental. He emphasized that threats could arise not just from armies or states,
but also from economic dependency, identity crises, societal disintegration, and
ecological collapse. Buzan's notion of "securitization"—the process by which issues
are framed as existential threats—also highlighted how security is not an objective fact
but a political speech act.
 ● India’s national security discourse, as Anshuman Behera and Areeba Ahsanat
Moazzam note, is slowly beginning to reflect these expanded concerns. Increasing
references to energy security, water scarcity, climate vulnerability, and public
health in national policy documents and strategic literature suggest a partial
assimilation of this broader security framework.
● Human security, popularized by Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen, further
decentralizes the state as the primary referent of security. Instead, it shifts the focus
to the individual and their freedom from fear, want, and indignity. This approach
highlights threats such as poverty, unemployment, disease, gender-based violence,
and discrimination as central to the national security agenda.
● For a country like India, where millions continue to live in socio-economic precarity,
human security is not just a theoretical construct—it is a practical imperative. The rise
of Left-Wing Extremism, identity-based riots, and regional insurgencies are often
rooted in failures of development, justice, and representation. Addressing these
challenges through state-centric coercion alone is insufficient. A broader
understanding of security—one that includes education, health, environment, and
equity—is critical.
● Yet, India’s embrace of the human security paradigm remains incomplete and
inconsistent. While flagship welfare schemes (e.g., Ayushman Bharat, Jal Jeevan
Mission, PM-KISAN) indirectly contribute to human security, they are rarely framed as
strategic imperatives in national security discourse. This gap between policy practice
and conceptual clarity is something that Behera and Moazzam identify as a key
challenge for India’s evolving security architecture.
●
A particularly influential contribution to the theoretical understanding of security comes from
Arnold Wolfers, who characterized security as an “ambiguous symbol.” In his seminal
essay “‘National Security’ as an Ambiguous Symbol”(1952), Wolfers argued that security has
both an objective dimension—the absence of threats—and a subjective one—the absence
of fear. This distinction is vital because a state may possess immense military capability and
still feel insecure, or vice versa.
In India’s case, this insight is profoundly relevant. Despite being a nuclear power with the
world’s third-largest army, India continues to perceive itself as strategically vulnerable—
owing to the presence of hostile neighbors, internal diversity, and asymmetrical regional
dynamics. The perception of threat, especially in relation to Pakistan’s proxy warfare or
China’s assertiveness, is not purely material but also deeply psychological and historical.
Political actors often draw upon this subjective insecurity to justify militarization,
surveillance, and centralized control.
Security, in this sense, becomes a discourse, a way of speaking about certain issues that
legitimizes particular policies. Drawing on Michel Foucault, David Campbell, and later Ole
Wæver, critical security scholars have argued that the act of securitizing an issue—e.g.,
migration, dissent, or data flows—enables the state to exceptionalize its response, often
bypassing normal democratic procedures.
● In the Indian context, the securitization of internal dissent, particularly in Kashmir,
Northeast India, or during farmer and student protests, reflects this discursive
 ●

construction of threats. By labeling these as national security concerns, the state

justifies the use of extraordinary laws (e.g., UAPA, AFSPA), military deployment, and
surveillance. This underscores the need for democratic checks and accountability
within national security frameworks, as security discourses can both protect and
threaten democratic values.
●
India’s contemporary security landscape reflects a hybridization of paradigms. The
military and nuclear deterrencestrategies align with classical realism and structural
realism. India’s multi-alignment foreign policy—strategically engaging the U.S., Russia,
Europe, and the Indo-Pacific—demonstrates neorealist pragmatism. Meanwhile,
development-oriented counterinsurgency efforts in Naxalite zones and Northeast India
show the slow influence of human security logic.
Further, the growing institutionalization of cybersecurity, space policy, and climate
mitigation points to India’s partial adoption of Buzan’s sectoral model. However, these
newer areas remain under-theorized and under-coordinatedwithin India’s fragmented
security apparatus.
● The writings of Behera and Moazzam push for a deeper conceptual clarity and
institutional coherence in this regard. They argue that India must formally articulate a
National Security Strategy that reflects these theoretical evolutions, balancing
traditional state concerns with the demands of a diverse and democratic society.
● Anshuman Behera and Areeba Ahsanat Moazzam, presents a rich, layered, and
contested terrain that reflects the evolving realities of the 21st century. Their analysis
offers a taxonomy of three broad strands that have historically shaped and continue to
inform India’s security discourse: state-centric security, human security, and
comprehensive security.
● At the core of India’s security discourse lies the state-centric narrative, which
positions the sovereign territorial stateas the principal referent object of security.
This narrative is deeply entrenched in both India’s colonial legacy and postcolonial
anxieties. The traumatic experience of Partition, territorial disputes with Pakistan and
China, and the persistence of insurgencies in Kashmir, the Northeast, and Central
India have consistently reinforced a statist understanding of security centered on
territorial integrity, military capability, and internal cohesion.
● Behera and Moazzam highlight that this narrative is grounded in realist assumptions
about an anarchic international system, where the state must rely on military and
strategic instruments to protect itself from both external aggression and internal
fragmentation. In India’s case, this narrative has been operationalized through an
emphasis on:
● The modernization and expansion of the armed forces.
● The development of nuclear deterrence capabilities, particularly after the 1998
Pokhran-II tests.
● The strengthening of internal security apparatuses, including the Intelligence
Bureau, paramilitary forces, and anti-terrorism legislation like the UAPA.
● Strategic doctrines like No First Use and Cold Start, which reflect classical realist
concerns with deterrence, coercive diplomacy, and limited war.
● Importantly, the state-centric narrative often conflates national security with regime
 ●
security, prioritizing the preservation of order over the protection of democratic
freedoms. Dissent is occasionally cast as a security threat, and the securitization of
protest movements (e.g., in Kashmir, the anti-CAA protests, or farmer agitations)
reveals how deeply this narrative permeates not just foreign and defense policy, but
also internal governance. Behera and Moazzam are critical of this trajectory, arguing
that it often leads to an authoritarian drift and a narrow conceptualization of
security.
●
In contrast to the statist focus, the human security narrative shifts the referent object of
security from the state to the individual and the community. Drawing inspiration from the
UNDP’s 1994 Human Development Report, which introduced the concept of “freedom from
fear and freedom from want,” this narrative emphasizes issues such as health, education,
livelihood, gender justice, environmental sustainability, and social cohesion.
Behera and Moazzam point out that this paradigm gained intellectual and policy traction in
India from the late 1990s onwards, especially in response to growing concerns about:
● Widespread poverty and inequality.
● Communal and caste-based violence.
● Public health challenges, notably HIV/AIDS and later the COVID-19 pandemic.
● Environmental degradation and climate-induced displacement.
While the human security discourse does not reject the relevance of state security, it
challenges its exclusivity, arguing that the protection of sovereignty is meaningless if
citizens are dying of hunger, discrimination, disease, or displacement. In this sense, the
human security narrative is both a normative critique and a practical expansion of the
conventional security paradigm.
In the Indian context, elements of human security have found partial expression in a range of
policies:
● Welfare schemes like MGNREGA, the National Food Security Act, and Ayushman
Bharat.
● Gender-focused initiatives like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao.
● Disaster preparedness through the National Disaster Management Authority
(NDMA).
● Increasing attention to cybersecurity and data protection, given their implications for
individual freedoms and digital sovereignty.
● However, as Behera and Moazzam argue, these measures often remain siloed,
technocratic, or instrumental, rather than being integrated into the core of national
security policymaking. There is no unified institutional framework or policy document
that treats human security as a central pillar of national security. Moreover,
implementation is often uneven, and the voices of marginalized communities are rarely
incorporated in defining what security means for them.
●
The third strand identified by Behera and Moazzam is the comprehensive security
narrative, which seeks to synthesizethe strengths of both state-centric and human security
paradigms. It recognizes that threats in the 21st century are often interlinked, with external
vulnerabilities feeding internal instability and vice versa. For example:
 ● Cross-border terrorism has domestic repercussions in terms of communal polarization.
● Internal insurgencies are sustained through transnational networks of arms, finance,
and ideology.
● Cyber warfare blurs the line between domestic infrastructure security and foreign
intelligence operations.
● Climate change-induced migration creates geopolitical pressures and domestic
resource conflicts.
Comprehensive security, then, calls for a whole-of-government, whole-of-society
approach that integrates hard and soft power, coercion and consent, prevention and
preparedness. It also demands an overhaul of India’s security institutions to enhance inter-
agency coordination, civil-military collaboration, and multi-level governance.
India’s increasing investments in cybersecurity, the integration of space and defense
technology, the appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), and participation in
multilateral strategic forums like the Quad, BIMSTEC, and ASEANshow tentative moves
toward this comprehensive model. Likewise, India’s post-COVID focus on health systems, its
shift to renewable energy, and its diplomatic emphasis on climate action (e.g., International
Solar Alliance) demonstrate a more integrated understanding of security.
● However, the comprehensive narrative remains under-theorized and institutionally
fragmented. India still lacks a formal National Security Strategy (NSS) that
articulates how these diverse elements—military, developmental, environmental,
technological—come together under a unified vision. The consequence is a form of
“strategic improvisation”—effective in short-term response but lacking coherence
for long-term resilience.
●
Behera and Moazzam’s framework is deeply attuned to the politics of security discourse—
who gets to define threats, what is prioritized, and whose voices are marginalized. They
argue that security is not an objective reality but a discursive construction, shaped by
ideological commitments, national identity narratives, and institutional interests.
In India, the ideology of nationalism plays a crucial role in shaping the security agenda. The
idea of Bharat as a civilizational state, the memory of partition, and the political project of
Hindutva all influence how threats are perceived and framed. The "enemy within" trope—
used to describe dissidents, minorities, or “anti-nationals”—reveals how internal dissent is
often securitized in ways that marginalize democratic dissent and human rights.
Moreover, religious and caste-based identities often determine who experiences security
or insecurity. Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, and Northeast communities face structural violence
that is rarely framed as a national security concern, despite its implications for social
cohesion. Similarly, gender-based violence, which threatens the security of half the
population, is seldom integrated into security discourse, remaining the domain of social
policy rather than strategic affairs.
Institutionally, the dominance of military, police, and intelligence agencies in shaping
security discourse further entrenches the statist paradigm. Civil society, academia, and
marginalized communities have limited access to these decision-making spaces, resulting in
a narrow and often masculinized conception of security.
 ● Behera and Moazzam therefore call for a democratization of security discourse—one
that allows for plural perspectives, participatory governance, and social
accountability. Security, they argue, must be reclaimed as a public good, not merely
a state monopoly.
● By identifying the state-centric, human security, and comprehensive narratives,
they demonstrate that security is not a settled or singular concept but a site of
contestation, negotiation, and struggle. Each narrative has its own epistemology,
institutional carriers, and political implications. The Indian state, faced with multiple
and simultaneous threats, often oscillates between these narratives, sometimes
integrating them, sometimes instrumentalizing them, and often neglecting their
potential synergies.
● India’s foreign policy, especially in the post-1991 period, has undergone a marked
transformation from its traditional emphasis on normative diplomacy and non-
alignment to a more strategic, security-centric orientation. This evolution is not merely
the product of changing global dynamics or economic liberalization but reflects a
deeper shift in how India conceptualizes and operationalizes national security. In
this transformation, foreign policy itself has emerged as a crucial tool of statecraft,
deeply intertwined with India’s national security objectives. As P.S. Raghavan astutely
argues, India’s foreign engagements today cannot be understood outside the prism of
national security—they are often determined by it. Prior to the 1990s, India’s foreign
policy was heavily influenced by ideational frameworks—namely, non-alignment,
South-South cooperation, and moral leadership in global affairs. While security was
always a concern—given wars with China and Pakistan, and the nuclear program—it
was largely managed within a traditional, state-centric, and reactive framework.
● The 1991 economic crisis, followed by the end of the Cold War, marked a paradigm
shift. India’s increased engagement with global markets, its desire to attract foreign
investment, and the imperative to integrate with global governance institutions
demanded a more pragmatic and interest-driven foreign policy. At the same time,
growing threats from cross-border terrorism, nuclearization of the neighborhood, and
the emergence of China as a regional hegemon compelled India to embed national
security imperatives within its foreign policy framework.
● Raghavan identifies this post-1991 period as the beginning of a strategic turn in
India’s foreign policy, where economic interests, geopolitical alignments, and
military considerations are increasingly fused. This security-driven approach has
since been formalized through doctrines, institutional realignments, and proactive
diplomatic initiatives.
●
India’s foreign policy is heavily shaped by its regional security environment, which is
marked by two nuclear adversaries, overlapping territorial disputes, and strategic
competition in both continental and maritime domains.
a. China
The rise of China presents India with a multifaceted challenge—military, economic,
technological, and geopolitical. China’s infrastructure development in Tibet, border
transgressions (e.g., Doklam in 2017, Galwan in 2020), and increasing maritime presence
in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) have prompted India to recalibrate its policy from benign
engagement to cautious competition.
Raghavan underscores that India’s foreign policy toward China is shaped by security
calculations as much as economic imperatives. Despite bilateral trade reaching record
highs, strategic mistrust persists. India's participation in forums like the Quadrilateral
Security Dialogue (Quad), enhanced defense cooperation with Japan, Australia, and the
United States, and its emphasis on Indo-Pacific strategies signal a gradual shift toward
external balancing.
b. Pakistan
Pakistan remains a perennial security threat due to its support for cross-border terrorism,
especially in Jammu and Kashmir, and its strategic collusion with China. Raghavan explains
that India's diplomatic engagements with Pakistan are often dictated not by foreign policy
doctrines but by security exigencies, particularly after terrorist attacks such as the 2001
Parliament attack, 2008 Mumbai attacks, Pathankot (2016), and Pulwama (2019).
India has operationalized its security concerns vis-à-vis Pakistan through diplomatic
isolation strategies (e.g., boycotting SAARC), water diplomacy (e.g., reinterpreting the
Indus Waters Treaty), and cross-border military strikes (e.g., 2016 “surgical strikes” and
the 2019 Balakot airstrikes), all of which represent the militarization of foreign policy in
service of national security.
c. Afghanistan
India’s involvement in Afghanistan has been driven by a combination of developmental
diplomacy and strategic denialto Pakistan. With the return of the Taliban in 2021, India's
foreign policy toward Afghanistan has shifted from aid-based engagement to a cautious
security watch posture. Raghavan highlights the risks of terrorism spillover,
radicalization, and the use of Afghan territory by anti-India groups, as key concerns
shaping India's limited but strategic outreach to Taliban authorities.
d. Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific has emerged as a major theater of India's maritime security diplomacy.
Raghavan argues that the shift from the “Asia-Pacific” to “Indo-Pacific” is not semantic but
strategic—it acknowledges India's centrality in regional geopolitics. The Indo-Pacific
provides a platform for India to:
● Check China’s expansionism through minilateral forums like the Quad.
● Assert its leadership in regional stability via initiatives like SAGAR (Security and
Growth for All in the Region).
● Engage in naval diplomacy with countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, and France.
● Here, foreign policy becomes a proactive instrument of maritime deterrence,
diplomacy, and regional coalition-building.
●
India's foreign policy uses a range of instruments to operationalize its security interests,
moving well beyond classical diplomacy.
a. Military Diplomacy
Raghavan emphasizes the increasing role of military-to-military cooperation, including
joint exercises (e.g., Malabar, Yudh Abhyas, Varuna), defense technology transfers, and
logistics support agreements with key partners. These engagements serve multiple
purposes:
● Signal military readiness.
● Enhance interoperability with strategic partners.
● Deter adversaries through force projection.
b. Strategic Multilateralism
India has increasingly relied on multilateral forums to shape global security discourse:
● In the UN, it advocates for counter-terrorism frameworks, peacekeeping reforms, and
global governance restructuring.
● In the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS, it attempts to engage
with China and Russia to balance Western influence.
● In the Quad, it aligns with like-minded democracies to maintain maritime security and
supply chain resilience.
Raghavan underscores that multilateralism in Indian foreign policy is both a shield and a
sword—it provides India with strategic space while reinforcing its image as a responsible
power.
c. Strategic Hedging
India has perfected the art of strategic hedging—engaging with competing powers without
aligning formally with any. This is evident in:
● Buying defense equipment from Russia, while deepening security partnerships with
the US.
● Supporting Iran’s Chabahar Port, while simultaneously participating in Indo-Pacific
coalitions that counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
● This hedging is a deliberate strategy to retain strategic autonomy, preserve
flexibility, and maximize security gainsfrom multiple directions.
●
One of Raghavan’s most insightful contributions lies in his analysis of the institutional
evolution that has enabled security-oriented foreign policy in India.
a. National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS)
Established in 1998, the NSCS provides a coordinated platform for integrating defense,
intelligence, and foreign policy perspectives. Its secretariat functions as the core policy
coordination unit across ministries and agencies. Although it still faces challenges of
bureaucratic inertia and inter-agency rivalry, the NSCS represents a crucial step toward
coherent security governance.
b. Role of the National Security Advisor (NSA)
The increasing stature of the NSA—particularly under Ajit Doval—has further blurred the
lines between foreign policy and security. The NSA plays multiple roles:
● Strategic negotiator (e.g., with China, US, Pakistan).
● Intelligence coordinator.
● Doctrinal architect and crisis manager.
The centralization of security decision-making in the NSA's office has made India's foreign
policy more security-led, but it also raises concerns about democratic oversight, civil-
military balance, and transparency.
c. Bureaucratic Reforms and Think Tankization
● India has also witnessed the rise of security-focused think tanks (e.g., IDSA, ORF,
Takshashila) that influence foreign policy debates. Simultaneously, the inclusion of
domain specialists in advisory roles, creation of specialized divisions in the Ministry
of External Affairs (MEA), and establishment of the Defence Planning Committee
(DPC) indicate attempts at institutional modernization and integration.
●
The juxtaposition of Behera & Moazzam’s normative discourse on national security with
Raghavan’s realist, policy-oriented approach reveals a fascinating convergence of
perspectives, yet also surfaces deep-seated tensions that reflect the complex nature of
India’s evolving security architecture. While their analytical vocabularies and focal concerns
may differ, both perspectives speak to the urgent need for a more sophisticated and holistic
understanding of national security that bridges conceptual theory and operational
strategy.
At the heart of their convergence lies a shared recognition of the interdependence between
internal and external security. Raghavan, in his realist framing, consistently emphasizes
how India's foreign policy is deeply influenced by internal vulnerabilities—such as
insurgencies, social unrest, and communal tensions—which can be amplified by external
actors. For example, Pakistan's support for terrorism in Kashmir or China's influence in the
Northeast underscore how porous the boundary is between domestic stability and foreign
policy. Behera and Moazzam echo this idea from the opposite angle, arguing that internal
governance failures—poverty, inequality, marginalization—often transform into security
crises when exploited by external forces. In this view, national security is not just about
external defense but about internal justice and inclusion.
Another key point of agreement is the primacy of strategic autonomy. Both readings value
India's ability to maintain an independent voice in global affairs—free from the orbit of great
power politics. For Raghavan, this is rooted in pragmatic hedging strategies, seen in India’s
balancing between the U.S., Russia, and China; for Behera and Moazzam, it is about resisting
normative impositions from dominant security paradigms and carving out a context-
sensitive, decolonial approach to defining what security means for India. Strategic autonomy,
then, is both an operational necessity and a normative aspiration—a rare convergence of
theory and practice.
Further, both perspectives emphasize the need for institutional coherence in India's
security governance. Raghavan critiques the bureaucratic fragmentation between ministries
and agencies, and the over-personalization of strategic decision-making. Similarly, Behera
and Moazzam point to the conceptual incoherence in India’s security thinking—how the
absence of a unified doctrine leads to ad hocism and reactive policymaking. Both call for a
clearer articulation of roles, responsibilities, and frameworks—whether through a formal
National Security Strategy (NSS) or a more democratic and discursive process of security
planning.
However, their perspectives also diverge in significant ways, particularly in how they
approach the ethical and social dimensions of security. Behera and Moazzam are deeply
critical of state overreach—the tendency to equate national security with regime security,
and to justify the securitization of dissent, militarization of civilian spaces, and
surveillance overreach. Raghavan, by contrast, works within the logic of statecraft and
realpolitik, where the preservation of sovereignty and order may sometimes necessitate
exceptional measures. This leads to a fundamental tension between normative concerns of
democratic accountability and operational concerns of strategic efficiency.
Similarly, the development-security dichotomy marks another point of divergence. Behera
and Moazzam argue for development as security—where poverty alleviation, healthcare,
education, and rights are seen as essential to national resilience. Raghavan treats
development more as a context—important, but secondary to strategic threats. The result is
a differing prioritization: for Behera and Moazzam, human insecurity is the root of most
threats; for Raghavan, geopolitical and military threats take precedence.
● Bridging these approaches requires a layered, dialogical model of national security
—one that acknowledges operational constraints but remains committed to democratic
values, human dignity, and long-term resilience.
●
India’s national security landscape today is shaped by a rapidly changing threat environment
that challenges the limits of traditional paradigms. The country faces a diverse spectrum of
risks, ranging from conventional military threats and terrorism to cyber warfare,
environmental crises, and public health emergencies. Yet the institutional response remains
fragmented, reactive, and under-theorized. This section outlines some of the most
pressing contemporary challenges facing India’s national security framework.
1. Fragmented Institutional Landscape and the Absence of a Formal NSS
Despite being the world’s largest democracy and one of its fastest-growing economies, India
still lacks a formal, publicly available National Security Strategy. While strategic
documents like the Defence Planning Guidelines, Annual Threat Assessments, or the
Raksha Mantri's Operational Directives exist, they remain classified, ad hoc, or fragmented
across different ministries. This absence has several implications:
● It hinders coordinated inter-agency response.
● Limits transparency and public accountability.
● Prevents a clear articulation of strategic priorities, especially in newer domains like
cyber, space, and biotechnology. India’s security architecture remains
compartmentalized between the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Home Affairs,
Ministry of External Affairs, and newer structures like the National Security Council
Secretariat (NSCS), which lack seamless integration.
2. Cross-Border Terrorism and Internal Insurgencies
Terrorism emanating from Pakistan continues to be a high-intensity, low-probability
threat, while domestic insurgencies in Jammu and Kashmir, the Northeast, and Left-
Wing Extremism-affected areas persist. Despite a decline in the number of violent
incidents, the ideological, ethnic, and socio-economic drivers of these conflicts remain
unaddressed.
Counterterrorism efforts have focused primarily on kinetic responses—military operations,
laws like UAPA, and intelligence-led policing. While effective in disrupting networks, these
approaches often sideline developmental and political solutions, leading to long-term
instability and alienation. Moreover, counterinsurgency is often divorced from human rights
frameworks, resulting in erosion of public trust and democratic legitimacy.
3. Cyber Threats, Information Warfare, and Digital Vulnerabilities
India is among the most digitally penetrated societies in the world, with over 800 million
internet users. However, its cyber architecture remains vulnerable to:
● State-sponsored attacks (e.g., alleged Chinese-origin cyber espionage against Indian
power grids and vaccine institutions).
● Non-state disinformation campaigns (e.g., communal incitement, election
interference).
● Data breaches and ransomware targeting financial institutions and infrastructure.
India lacks a comprehensive cybersecurity law, and its existing institutions—CERT-In,
NCIIPC, and NTRO—are siloed, under-resourced, and lack judicial oversight. The Digital
Personal Data Protection Act (2023) marks a step forward, but concerns remain about its
implementation and surveillance potential.
4. Climate Insecurity and Health Crises
India is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. Rising sea levels, glacial
melt in the Himalayas, water scarcity, and extreme weather events threaten national stability
and livelihood security. Climate insecurity also exacerbates internal migration, urban stress,
and inter-state tensions over resources.
● The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the deep fragility of India’s health infrastructure,
its lack of supply chain resilience, and the absence of a national biosecurity strategy.
These threats are non-military but have existential consequences for human
security and state legitimacy. Yet they remain on the margins of the national security
discourse.
●
To address the complexities of today’s threat environment, India must move toward a
comprehensive, adaptive, and inclusive National Security Strategy (NSS) that integrates
military, diplomatic, economic, technological, environmental, and societal dimensions
of security.
1. The Case for a Formal, Inclusive NSS
A formal NSS would provide:
● Strategic clarity on threats and priorities.
● A coordinated roadmap across government departments.
● A publicly accountable framework that aligns with democratic norms. Countries like
the United States, United Kingdom, and even Pakistan publish regular national security
strategies to align internal coherence with external signaling. India’s absence of such a
document hampers its ability to act predictably and institutionally, both at home and
abroad.
2. Institutional Reforms and Inter-agency Integration
To implement such a strategy, India must:
● Strengthen the role and capacity of the National Security Council Secretariat
 ●
(NSCS) as a whole-of-government coordinator.
● Institutionalize inter-agency task forces that bring together MEA, MHA, MoD,
intelligence agencies, health and environment ministries.
● Elevate the role of the National Security Advisor (NSA) while ensuring checks
through parliamentary oversightor advisory councils.
3. Incorporating Non-Traditional and Human Security Concerns
India must broaden its understanding of national security by:
● Mainstreaming health, climate, water, and food security into the national security
matrix.
● Treating gender-based violence, communal conflict, and inequality not as social
issues alone, but as national security concerns.
● Building resilience frameworks that integrate disaster response, social welfare, and
inclusive governance.
4. Balancing Strategic Autonomy with Global Engagement
India’s foreign policy must continue to prioritize strategic autonomy, but within a framework
of constructive multilateralism. This requires:
● Deepening partnerships in defense and technology while maintaining non-alignment
in principle.
● Leading global platforms on climate diplomacy, health governance, and cyber
norms.
● Engaging with both Western and Global South countries on reforming global
institutions like the UN, WTO, and IMF.
5. Civil Society Inclusion and Public Debate on National Security
A democratic national security policy must be inclusive and participatory:
● Include civil society, academic institutions, think tanks, and journalists in strategic
discussions.
● Facilitate public debate on the ethical limits of surveillance, coercive laws, and military
expenditure.
● Promote security literacy through educational reforms and public communication.
● India’s national security discourse today is no longer confined to questions of
territorial sovereignty or traditional military deterrence. It is a layered, dynamic and
constantly negotiated domain shaped by internal vulnerabilities, external
engagements, structural asymmetries, and the compulsions of a transforming global
order. At the heart of this evolving discourse lies the necessity to reconcile India’s
historical strategic restraint with contemporary aspirations of regional and global
influence. The conceptual framework offered by Anshuman Behera and Areeba
Ahsanat Moazzam situates national security not as a monolithic state concern but as a
contested terrain where competing visions of the "nation" and "security" interact.
Complementing this, P.S. Raghavan brings grounded realism to bear, showing how
foreign policy itself becomes a vehicle for security articulation in a turbulent
geopolitical landscape. Together, these readings uncover the intellectual and
operational foundations of India’s national security architecture, one that is
simultaneously reactive, aspirational, and increasingly multidimensional.
● Behera and Moazzam begin by critiquing the tendency in Indian strategic studies to
adopt an overly statist approach to security. They argue for a more expansive lens,
●

pointing out that national security is not merely about defending the territorial borders
of the state but also about securing lives, livelihoods, and the internal fabric of
democratic stability. While traditional security paradigms have their place—particularly
given India’s precarious geopolitical geography—the rise of transnational threats such
as cyber warfare, climate change, and pandemics compels an epistemological shift.
Their view aligns with the broader human security framework developed by the United
Nations Development Programme in the 1990s, one that sees freedom from fear and
want as equally important as freedom from invasion. Yet what makes their intervention
particularly valuable is that they do not discard the statist approach but instead
demand a more nuanced hybrid—what they call a "comprehensive security
discourse"—that integrates state security with human-centric needs.
● P.S. Raghavan’s insights offer a realpolitik-driven counterpart to this normative shift. In
mapping the way foreign policy serves national security goals, Raghavan underscores
the critical role of regional stability, bilateral diplomacy, and power projection in
securing India’s strategic interests. He illustrates how India's foreign engagements are
often crafted with security imperatives at the core—from managing the “small
neighbor syndrome” in South Asia to developing counterweights to China’s strategic
encirclement via initiatives like the Belt and Road. Raghavan’s analysis speaks directly
to the structural realities of India's environment: surrounded by fragile states,
threatened by asymmetric warfare from Pakistan, and engaged in a complex rivalry
with an economically and militarily superior China. These are not abstract threats; they
have direct implications for India’s domestic security landscape. Insurgencies in the
Northeast, communal violence in border states, and terrorism in Kashmir are all shaped
by external enablers—highlighting the seamless fusion of internal and external security
domains.
● The contrast and convergence between these two perspectives—Behera and
Moazzam’s theoretical reframing and Raghavan’s strategic pragmatism—are
instructive. While the former calls for a reimagination of the meaning of security itself,
the latter illustrates the operational logic of statecraft in securing such security.
Raghavan’s detailed exposition on India’s China policy, for instance, illustrates the
dilemmas of strategic interdependence. On the one hand, China is India's largest
trading partner and a key supplier of critical technologies and raw materials. On the
other hand, it is the principal long-term strategic threat, supporting Pakistan, claiming
Arunachal Pradesh, and expanding its naval presence in the Indian Ocean. Behera and
Moazzam’s framework would argue that such a situation cannot be resolved through
traditional deterrence alone and requires a whole-of-society approach involving
economic resilience, diplomatic agility, and internal democratic cohesion. Raghavan,
meanwhile, emphasizes the strategic necessity of hedging—strengthening India's own
capabilities, leveraging multilateral forums like the Quad and BIMSTEC, and deepening
bilateral ties with actors like Russia and the United States.
● One of the most profound intersections between the two perspectives is the
recognition of the blurring line between domestic governance and national security.
Behera and Moazzam stress that issues like poverty, misinformation, communal
violence, and weak institutions are not peripheral to security—they are central to it.
Raghavan confirms this by demonstrating how foreign policy must also address
domestic fault lines. The example of India's engagement with Bangladesh—where
 domestic political contestations over river sharing and illegal migration often spill into
foreign relations—reflects this convergence. Similarly, India’s outreach to Sri Lanka is
inevitably shaped by Tamil Nadu’s political stance, while its Afghanistan policy must
navigate both terrorism threats and humanitarian diplomacy. These examples prove
that security cannot be compartmentalized; it must be managed across both the
foreign and domestic policy spectrum.
● Raghavan also touches on structural vulnerabilities in India’s defense-industrial
complex, calling out the country’s overdependence on imported arms, especially from
Russia. This dependence creates not only fiscal strain but strategic blackmail, such as
U.S. sanctions under CAATSA. Behera and Moazzam’s broader argument about
national security as a systemic condition—not just a response to external threats—
finds an echo here. For a state that aspires to strategic autonomy, building domestic
technological and manufacturing capabilities in defense is not just an economic goal
but a core national security imperative. The case for indigenization of arms and critical
technologies intersects both perspectives—one emphasizing conceptual autonomy,
the other operational sovereignty.
● Another area where these readings resonate is in the treatment of multilateralism and
strategic partnerships. Behera and Moazzam critique the traditional realist obsession
with military threats, arguing that alliances and partnerships can play a soft balancing
role in global affairs. Raghavan, too, is mindful of this logic. His nuanced treatment of
India’s involvement in the Indo-Pacific, its leadership in SAGAR (Security and Growth
for All in the Region), and its proactive diplomacy in BIMSTEC, reflect the use of soft
power and cooperative security as tools of strategic influence. Both perspectives
understand that hard power alone cannot secure India's interests. Diplomatic
engagement, economic interdependence, and cultural affinity—components often
dismissed as secondary—are central to the logic of a 21st-century national security
doctrine.
● Critically, Raghavan’s emphasis on institutional reforms—such as the expanding role of
the National Security Council Secretariat and the integration of the National Security
Advisor into foreign policy planning—aligns with Behera and Moazzam’s call for a more
holistic national security architecture. The 1999 Kargil Review Committee had already
noted the institutional fragmentation and lack of strategic coherence in India’s security
planning. The recent restructuring of the NSCS, the introduction of specialized cyber
and space agencies, and the normalization of NSA-level dialogues all point to a
maturing national security infrastructure. Yet challenges remain: turf wars,
bureaucratic inertia, and lack of coordination still hinder the effective implementation
of a truly comprehensive security doctrine.
● Furthermore, both perspectives help us understand the logic behind India’s hedging
strategies in great power politics. Raghavan is particularly insightful in tracing how
India balances its ties with Russia and the United States, leveraging each against the
other while maximizing its own strategic autonomy. He notes that India’s defense
relationship with Russia is not easily dispensable despite U.S. pressure, just as its
strategic partnership with the U.S. is indispensable in countering Chinese
assertiveness. Behera and Moazzam’s framework, though more abstract, supports this
multi-vector diplomacy, seeing it as a way to avoid alignment-based security
entrapments. The objective is not to choose sides but to expand options—a hallmark of
 strategic maturity.
● As Behera and Moazzam emphasize, India’s national security discourse now operates
through three dominant narratives: state-centric security, human security, and a
comprehensive security approach that attempts to reconcile both.
●
Historically, national security was conceptualized within realist frameworks of International
Relations. The state was the central actor, and the protection of sovereignty and territorial
integrity the principal concern. This view, shaped by the Cold War and military doctrines of
deterrence and balance of power, saw military power as the core tool of ensuring national
security.
Hobbesian logic, as cited by Behera and Moazzam, positions the state as a necessary
institution for overcoming insecurity inherent in the “state of nature.” From this flows the
idea that the state's primary function is to provide security to its citizens—even at the cost of
certain liberties.
However, with the end of the Cold War and the advent of critical security studies,
alternative approaches emerged. Constructivists like Alexander Wendt argued that
“anarchy is what states make of it,” shifting the focus from material power to intersubjective
meanings and values. Feminist theorists, environmentalists, and sociological security
scholarsbegan to include non-traditional issues like gender-based violence, ecological
degradation, poverty, and social justice in the security lexicon.
● Behera and Moazzam draw attention to this evolution, noting that India’s security
thinking, while rooted in traditional realist paradigms, is increasingly reflecting the
“human security” perspective—an approach popularized by Mahbub ul Haq and UNDP
in the 1990s.
●
Arnold Wolfers famously described national security as an "ambiguous symbol"—a concept
that can be manipulated to justify a wide range of policies. Security, he suggested, is as
much a subjective feeling as it is an objective condition.
This aligns with Behera and Moazzam’s view that security is not simply a fixed condition,
but a normative project—a reflection of what a state “ought to” protect. It involves choices:
Which threats are prioritized? Whose security is safeguarded? How do we define the
“national”?
● This normative dimension means that security is also political. It reflects the values
of the ruling elite, the structure of the international system, and the balance of civil-
military relations. In India’s case, this has led to an emphasis on territorial integrity,
counter-terrorism, and increasingly, on development-led security in insurgency-hit
regions.
●
Post-independence, India’s strategic thinking was shaped by non-alignment, strategic
restraint, and a deep aversion to militarism, especially under Jawaharlal Nehru. As P. S.
Raghavan observes, foreign policy and national security were deeply intertwined, with India
seeking to balance principled sovereignty with strategic pragmatism.
India's state-centric national security model has revolved around:
 ● External threats from Pakistan and China.
● Border and territorial disputes (e.g., Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh).
● Militarization in response to these threats (e.g., nuclear doctrine, Cold Start).
● Intelligence and policing structures focused on surveillance and counterinsurgency.
Manoj Joshi and S. Ganguly have pointed out that India’s early national security focus was
largely military-modernization-centric, especially in response to the Sino-Indian War
(1962), Indo-Pak Wars (1965, 1971), and the Kargil conflict (1999).
● However, even within this paradigm, there were nuances. The Kargil Review
Committee, and later the Naresh Chandra Task Force, advocated for reforms in civil-
military integration, intelligence sharing, and technological modernization, reflecting
India's need to evolve in a complex strategic environment.
●
Behera and Moazzam mark a critical shift in Indian discourse toward non-traditional
security (NTS). These threats are transnational, non-military, and complex, including:
● Cyber threats and information warfare.
● Climate change and natural disasters.
● Public health crises (e.g., COVID-19).
● Internal migration, identity politics, and communal violence.
The incorporation of these themes has widened the Indian national security agenda beyond
conventional war paradigms. For instance:
● The National Cyber Security Policy (2013) seeks to secure digital infrastructure from
state and non-state actors.
● The Disaster Management Act (2005) emphasizes the state’s role in responding to
extreme climate events.
● Internal security strategies now incorporate developmental approaches to handle
Left-Wing Extremism and insurgencies in the Northeast.
● This expansion aligns with Barry Buzan’s idea that security must move beyond the
military to include societal, economic, and political dimensions.
●
The concept of human security, as laid out by Mahbub ul Haq and supported by UNDP,
argues that development, rights, and dignity are essential to genuine security.
Behera and Moazzam note that in India, human security concerns such as:
● Health (e.g., during pandemics)
● Food and water insecurity
● Gender-based violence
● Displacement due to conflict or infrastructure projects are increasingly seen
through a national security lens.
● This shift is partly pragmatic: state fragility and inequality can create fertile ground for
insurgency, radicalization, and social fragmentation. As seen in Maoist-affected
districts, lack of infrastructure, social justice, and education were critical drivers of
discontent.
●
The comprehensive security paradigm, as advanced by Behera and Moazzam, attempts to
bridge the gap between statist and human-centric approaches. This paradigm sees threats
as interlinked—external aggression can exploit internal fault lines, while internal instability
can undermine foreign policy leverage.
Examples of this integrated approach include:
● Counterinsurgency + development packages in Kashmir and Central India.
● Maritime diplomacy combined with economic investments in the Indian Ocean Region.
● Climate mitigation + rural security under schemes like PM-KUSUM and Jal Jeevan
Mission.
It also demands greater institutional integration, such as:
● National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS).
● Defense Space Agency and Cyber Command.
● Unified commands for joint military operations.