State and non-state actors that pose challenges to India’s national security:

  state and non-state actors that pose challenges to India’s national security:

‘State actor’ is used in the context where one government supports an actor in the performance of an act or acts of terrorism against the other often deemed as a state sponsor.

State actors: 

1) Increasing activities of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Nepal changed the nature of the border completely. It has ties with the Taliban and other radical groups. These groups have recently been involved with the radicalization of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Haqqani Network and the Taliban have repeatedly been used by Pakistan as instruments to help it achieve its foreign policy objectives in India and Afghanistan.

2) China’s People’s Liberation Army continues to deploy construction equipment for road works. It uses spider excavators to build roads in the border area.

3) China’s growing assertiveness in the region could be aimed at pushing Bhutan to agree to swap Doklam. China is setting up villages in uninhabited tri-junction stretches between India, Bhutan and China, which are intended to support Chinese military facilities.

4) China not following resolution mechanism of maritime disputes in reference to the South China Sea where China is flexing its military muscle despite an international tribunal verdict (UNCLOS) going against it.

Organizations and individuals not connected with, directed by, or funded through the government are non-state actors. They can be corporations, NGOs, and even paramilitary and armed resistance groups.

Non-state actors: 

1) Growing vulnerability of the coastline and also of the airspace, for example, Mumbai and Purulia incidents

2) Insurgency, illegal migration from Bangladesh and smuggling activities reflect the porosity (concern highlighted in Kargil Review Committee) of our borders

3) The deep-rooted nexus between drug mafias, arms dealers, and money launderers for financing terrorism

The north-eastern states have been facing many challenges such as 

a) organized Crime, the UWSA is the largest of the organized criminal groups in the region and operates freely along the China and Thailand borders, 

b) Ethnic Gangs 

c) Insurgent Groups which can encourage LWE, trans-border terrorism and separatist tendencies 

d) Opium poppy cultivation in Burma’s Shan state e) illegal immigrants having livelihood interest 

f) refugee crisis like 40,000 Rohingya live in India 

g) insurgent groups active in the Northeast, namely ULFA-I, NDFB-S, UNLF hide in Myanmar, together these could be a serious threat to internal security.