India’s Fragile Frontiers
With its borders facing political collapse, migration, and militancy, India must balance firmness with foresight to anchor South Asia’s stability

India’s borders have always been more than lines etched on a map. They are living frontiers where history, politics, and culture converge, and where the tremors of instability in neighbouring states are quickly transmitted into the Indian heartland. At this moment, as South Asia grapples with overlapping upheavals—from political collapse in Nepal and Bangladesh to renewed militancy in Pakistan—India confronts a question it can no longer postpone: will it continue to lurch from one reactive firefight to another, or will it finally assume the steadier role of regional steward in a multipolar and crisis-prone world?
In Nepal, the eruption of mass protests in September following the government’s abrupt ban on social media platforms is a reminder of how fragile the Himalayan republic remains. What began as an attempt to curb “misinformation” ignited the anger of a generation already disillusioned by corruption, unemployment, and political paralysis. Within days, Kathmandu’s streets were scenes of deadly clashes, dozens were killed, and the economy suffered losses estimated at nearly half of the country’s GDP. Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s resignation and the subsequent rise of Nepal’s first female prime minister were milestones that symbolised change but did little to ensure stability. Calls for a constitutional overhaul now echo across the country, even as tourism collapses and remittances falter. For India, this is not a distant drama. The open 1,751-kilometre border under the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship is both a lifeline and a vulnerability. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are already reporting sporadic influxes of Nepali returnees, while trade at crucial points such as Sunauli and Raxaul has been disrupted. Meanwhile, China has moved swiftly to expand its influence through Belt and Road Initiative projects, underscoring New Delhi’s own lag in engagement. The choice before India is delicate: overt intervention would stoke nationalist resentment in Kathmandu, while passivity risks ceding space to Beijing. The wiser course is discreet but determined—economic aid, reconstruction assistance, and institutional support that help Nepal regain balance without India appearing to dictate its path.
To the east, Bangladesh continues to struggle a year after Sheikh Hasina’s dramatic exit from power. The interim government under Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been unable to contain political violence or stabilise a sagging economy. Rights groups report nearly 200 mob-violence deaths since Hasina’s departure, while unemployment hovers near 30 percent and climate disasters displace millions across the delta. Islamist groups, long suppressed by the Awami League, are finding new space to regroup, feeding off institutional paralysis. For India, the stakes are immediate and pressing. The 4,096-kilometre border, one of the world’s longest, has become even more porous as migration surges. Reports suggest voluntary returns of undocumented Bangladeshi workers from India have tripled in the past year, while cattle smuggling, narcotics, and counterfeit currency are once again rising. Dhaka’s construction of new fences in disputed enclaves and a series of drone intrusions have heightened tensions. Anti-India rhetoric has sharpened, fuelled in part by Hasina’s exile in Delhi, jeopardising bilateral projects that are crucial for the development of India’s Northeast.
The contrast with 1971 is stark. Then, India’s decisive intervention reshaped the subcontinent. Today, restraint is the sharper instrument. What India must pursue is not military involvement but quiet diplomacy that shores up Dhaka’s democratic process, ensures credible elections, and revives platforms such as the Joint Rivers Commission to address festering issues like the Teesta waters. Insulating economic cooperation from political turmoil is equally critical. A fragile Bangladesh is not merely a neighbour’s problem; it is a direct risk to India’s border states, whose politics are already volatile enough without the added strain of refugee inflows or renewed communal tensions.
The gravest threat, however, emanates from the west, where Pakistan’s militant resurgence has once again destabilised the fragile calm. The April 2025 ambush of tourists in Kashmir, which left 26 dead, including a Nepali national, provoked India’s Operation Sindoor, a series of strikes on terror camps that spiralled into four days of cross-border hostilities before U.S. mediation restored the ceasefire. That ceasefire has since frayed, with violations steadily mounting. Pakistan’s internal disarray is at the core of this volatility: inflation above 35 percent, deep political instability, and militant outfits such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and Baloch insurgents capitalising on the state’s weakness. September alone saw a bloody raid near the Afghan border that killed nearly 50 people, highlighting how Pakistan’s army itself is struggling to maintain control. Layered atop this is China’s deepening entrenchment through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which ties Pakistan’s instability to global rivalries in ways India cannot ignore.
India’s response has shifted from the doctrine of “strategic restraint” to one of “decisive retaliation.” The temptation to strike preemptively is understandable, but in a nuclear dyad, every misstep carries catastrophic risks. What is required is a two-track approach: hardening military preparedness on one side while maintaining discreet backchannel diplomacy on the other. Pakistan’s collapse into a failed state would not only destabilise Kashmir but send shockwaves across the world. India must therefore see Pakistan not as an eternal adversary to be vanquished but as a volatile neighbour whose instability must be managed with as much caution as resolve.
Placed together, the crises in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan expose the deeper reality that South Asia’s stability is profoundly interdependent. A riot in Kathmandu disrupts trade in Bihar. Political paralysis in Dhaka triggers migration into Assam. Militant violence in Pakistan inflames Kashmir. Borders that once symbolised sovereign separation are now arteries through which instability flows, linking societies in both vulnerability and consequence. For India, this interconnectedness means that border management cannot be reduced to security patrols and barbed wire. It requires a strategic reimagining of neighbourhood policy.
That reimagining begins with smarter border governance that can separate illicit flows from legitimate cross-border exchanges, modernising systems with biometrics and joint mechanisms for local grievances. It requires deeper diplomacy—offering Nepal reconstruction support without paternalism, pressing Bangladesh on reforms while insulating trade and connectivity, and sustaining limited channels with Pakistan even as India strengthens deterrence. It demands stronger regional intelligence-sharing against militant and smuggling networks, investments in climate resilience and livelihoods in India’s own border districts, and humane refugee frameworks that avoid the ad-hoc, polarising responses of the past. Equally important, it calls for a more responsible public narrative. Each border crisis cannot become an electoral flashpoint.
Citizens deserve to see patience, empathy, and developmental investments framed not as weakness but as the true markers of national strength.
South Asia today stands at a precipice. India, as its largest state and strategic anchor, is both the most threatened and the most capable of steering the region toward stability. But doing so requires rejecting the seduction of short-term optics, whether military posturing, symbolic bans, or politically convenient narratives, and embracing the harder, quieter task of long-term stewardship. Walls and wars can only deliver reprieve. Bridges of diplomacy, development, and empathy are what can provide durable security. In a region bound by rivers, kinship, and shared vulnerabilities, India’s safety lies not in isolation but in inclusion.
The choice is now urgent. India can retreat behind fragile borders, waiting for the next wave of crises, or it can lead with foresight, offering its neighbours not dominance but stabilisation. In a multipolar world where external powers, from Beijing to Washington, seek to shape the subcontinent’s destiny, India must demonstrate that
South Asia’s future will be written first and foremost by South Asians themselves. How New Delhi answers that test will shape not only its own security but the region’s collective fate.
Views expressed are personal. The writer is an author, policy analyst, and columnist