Strategic Corridors of India: Security Challenges

The Indian corridors can be classified as strategic, proxy and gray zone conflict areas, internal trouble zones and cross border sensitive zones. In North India, the corridors are Ladakh, Kashmir and Punjab, in Central India, the Red Corridor and East India Siliguri and Northeast Corridors. All of the corridors border China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar geographically. These corridors hold strategic and geopolitical importance for India; the control over the corridor thus remains the dominant factor in maintaining the region’s stability. All of India’s strategic corridors hold significant importance and present challenges at both political and military levels. These corridors are interconnected primarily due to external pressures from hostile neighbours. Key players include Pakistan, China, and more recently, Bangladesh, along with Islamic states that maintain an anti-India stance. Internal factors also heavily influence these corridors. The Indian political system often lacks a cohesive vision, focusing instead on survival and vote-bank politics, where national interest is often overshadowed. All of these corridors are highly sensitive, with implications that could severely impact India’s strategic standing and geopolitical stability. If not carefully managed, these corridors could trigger significant national security issues, with potential political, military, diplomatic, social, ethnic, and cross-border ramifications involving state, non-state actors of neighbouring countries and deep state strategies of countries that are apprehensive of India’s position in the world order.