India's Approach to Border Management: From Barriers to Bridges [Paperback]

This book attempts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances which have shaped Indias approach towards its international borders and the framework it has developed to better manage its borders.

The book argues that persistence of various cross-border threats and challenges and an absence of robust intra-regional trade among its neighbouring countries forced India to employ a security-centric and unilateral approach to border management with emphasis on hardening the borders to cross-border trade and travel and keeping the border areas underdeveloped to act as a buffer against external conventional threats. Besides discussing the threats and challenges that India faces along the borders, the book aims to develop an understanding of Indias border management practices by analysing various programmes and initiatives such as the raising of border guarding forces; building of physical and electronic fences; the establishment of modern facilities for smoothening legitimate cross-border travel; the development of the border areas through special programmes; and increasing trade and connectivity as well as other cooperative bilateral mechanisms.

Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan).

This book attempts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances which have shaped Indias approach towards its international borders and the framework it has developed to better manage its borders.

Pushpita Das is Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Internal Security Centre at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. Her areas of research include border security and management, coastal security, drug trafficking, migration, and Indias Northeast. At MP-IDSA she has been studying Indias approach towards the management of its international bl3+