Institutional Roots of India’s Security Policy
An analytical overview of India’s security architecture through the lens of state capacity.
In recent years, India has asserted its desire not simply to be a balancing power but to become a leading power on the world stage. As India’s economic development has steadily progressed, so too have its foreign policy and security ambitions. However, India’s ability to sustain high rates of economic growth at home and project power overseas rests on unsteady state capacities.
Despite widespread concerns over the severe institutional constraints that India faces, there is a lack of scholarly research on the administrative and organizational effectiveness of India’s security institutions. Myriad inadequacies related to both procedure and personnel continue to hamper the Indian state’s ability to perform one of its most essential functions: protecting Indians from security threats at home and abroad.
Institutional Roots of India’s Security Policy aims to deconstruct and interrogate disparities in India’s security institutions through high-quality analytic examinations of more than a dozen foreign policy and national security institutions spread across four domains: the armed services, intelligence, border and internal security, and police and investigative agencies. A one-stop resource on India’s security institutions, this volume demystifies secretive institutions that have long eluded careful scrutiny, including India’s paramilitary forces, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
While many have gained public trust and forged a reputation for operational excellence, nearly all of India’s security institutions face governance challenges that—if left unaddressed—could undermine their long-term effectiveness. This introductory chapter introduces the volume, its objectives, and analytical framework. This framework consists of four pillars: (1) raison d’état, or the institution’s core objectives and the environment in which it operates; (2) organizational structure; (3) personnel issues; and (4) performance and reform. The chapter highlights several common themes which characterize the functioning of institutions in the national security domain and reinforces the urgency of administrative reform. These include endemic personnel shortcomings, fierce institutional rivalries, the impact of critical historic junctures, questions of legal and constitutional status, and the absence of civilian oversight.
Part I. Armed Forces
Chapter 2: The Indian Army
Ayesha Ray
This chapter probes the ability of the Indian Army to fulfil its core objectives as India’s premier land-based military service and reviews key themes such as civil–military relations, oversight, and reorganization of the Indian army. It begins with an overview of the army’s core objectives, which can be categorized into three domains: external security, internal security, and nuclear policy. The next section looks at innovations within the army over the past seven decades. The chapter then evaluates the success of the continuous training and skill development on which the army prides itself. Finally, it closes with reflections on the human and financial resource challenges the army faces as it navigates the complex domestic and external environment in the twenty-first century.
Chapter 3: The Indian Navy
Atul Bhardwaj
This chapter traces the evolution of the Indian Navy’s roles and missions through the prism of its experiences interacting with three major sea powers: Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The chapter then examines debates within the navy over what strategies will best prepare it for the present security scenario, as well as reviewing the navy’s attempts at indigenization. The final section examines personnel, promotion policies, organizational structure, and how the Indian Navy has upgraded its training and recruitment structures to keep pace with technological changes. It concludes that unless India reforms its naval force structure, the country’s dreams of being a maritime power and a domestic producer of naval armaments will remain elusive.
Chapter 4: The Indian Air Force
Rahul Bhatia, Shibani Mehta
One of the oldest independent air forces, the Indian Air Force (IAF), has engaged in a variety of conflicts, from high-end, regular conventional warfare during World War II to counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations in recent international conflicts. The aim of this chapter is to analyse IAF as an effective fighting force by examining its foundation and stated role, its performance in conflict, force structure, and acquisition programme. The chapter addresses the key question of whether the IAF’s capacity is sufficient when facing the security challenges posed by its main adversaries and contemplates possible reforms.
Part II. Intelligence
Chapter 5: The Research and Analysis Wing
Shreyas Shende, Rudra Chaudhuri
The Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external intelligence agency, has been in operation for over five decades, yet the organization has no constitutional status in India. This chapter focuses primarily on the organizational aspects of the R&AW and aims to provide a clearer institutional account of one of India’s principal security institutions. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first outlines the history and the core objectives of the R&AW. The second shines a light on its governance, including its organizational structure, recruitment policies, external oversight, and human and financial capital. In the concluding section, the authors analyse the agency’s need for change and reform.
Chapter 6: The Intelligence Bureau
Praveen Swami
This chapter reviews one of the most enigmatic institutions in India’s security arena—the Intelligence Bureau (IB). The IB’s functions span an extraordinary range of issues, from counterterrorism to counterintelligence to serving as a liaison with and between various police forces. However, more than a century after its creation, fundamental asymmetries of ends and means have led the IB to something on a road to nowhere. This chapter argues that several of the IB’s core functions have been met with intense competition from state and private-sector organizations, often with capabilities exceeding those of the Bureau itself. This anaemia has been further compounded by a long-standing inability to engage in the thoroughgoing capacity-development.
Part III. Internal and Border Security
Chapter 7: India’s Central Paramilitaries
Paul Staniland
This chapter explores the armed paramilitary forces under the aegis of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which are used to maintain internal security and guard international borders. It reviews seven paramilitary organs: the Assam Rifles, Border Security Force, Central Industrial Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police, National Security Guard, and Sashastra Seema Bal. This chapter provides an overview of each of these forces, briefly exploring their origins and historical evolution and then focusing on their functions in recent decades. This chapter advances the broader argument that the political importance of these central paramilitaries is one of several reasons to more intensively study India’s home ministry.
Chapter 8: The Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Sashastra Seema Bal
Jabin T. Jacob
This chapter reviews the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), both of which came into being following the 1962 China-India War. This history subsequently shaped the role of both organizations in significant ways. More recently, while the ITBP has remained largely committed to the border with China, the SSB’s focus has shifted specifically to India’s borders with Nepal and Bhutan. This chapter examines the control and the structure of these two paramilitary organizations, while also examining how and where they fit into India’s overall security policy-making calculus.
Chapter 9: The Border Security Force
Anirudh Deshpande
This chapter provides an assessment of the Border Security Force (BSF), dating back to its founding after the 1962 China–India conflict. This chapter sets out to do four things: provide a historical discussion of the BSF’s founding and its relationship to both internal and external borders; describe the structure, funding, and personnel of the BSF; critically analyse key capacity gaps that pertain to the BSF; and discuss the ways in which the BSF intersects, interacts, and overlaps with other police and paramilitary forces. Looking to the future, the force must grapple with multiple challenges as it seeks to align its operational philosophy, organization, and training with a security environment that has significantly changed since its inception.
Chapter 10: The Assam Rifles and the Rashtriya Rifles
Raghuveer Nidumolu, Srinath Raghavan
This chapter focuses on a particular institutional innovation in the Indian state and military’s capacity to deal with insurgencies: the two large and specialized counter-insurgency forces of the Assam Rifles and Rashtriya Rifles. This chapter offers a comparative analysis of the Assam Rifles and the Rashtriya Rifles along four dimensions: historical development, organizational structure, human resources, and performance and reforms. The analysis suggests that the Assam Rifles and the Rashtriya Rifles present contrasting yet similarly instructive models of specialized counter-insurgency forces.
Part IV. Police and Investigative Agencies
Chapter 11: The Police in India
Akshay Mangla and Vineet Kapoor
This chapter presents an analytical appraisal of India’s state police agencies and their role in preserving India’s internal security. It explores the evolving organizational mandate and objectives of state police forces in India. It also examines the formal institutional design of police agencies, focusing on organizational hierarchy and internal procedures as well as administrative capacity and human resources. The chapter then explores the interplay between formal structures and the informal institutions of policing. It concludes by analysing policy reform proposals that have arisen alongside the practical realities of resource constraints and growing societal demands.
Chapter 12: The Central Bureau of Investigation and the National Investigation Agency
Navneet Rajan Wasan
India’s Central Bureau of Investigation—also known as the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE), its primary investigative wing—and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) are two of the Indian government’s premier investigation agencies. The CBI investigates conventional, economic, and corruption offences, while the NIA exclusively handles crimes related to terrorism and internal security. This chapter examines the history of both agencies in the context of ongoing jurisdictional conflicts between Indian states and the central government. It also analyses core issues related to human resources, institutional credibility, and political interference.