CLAWS Journal Article - A Review of Roles: ITBP and Indian Coast Guard

This is a draft of a paper published in Scholar Warrior (ISSN: 2319-7331, Spring 2021), a Centre for Land and Warfare Studies Publication.

Abstract

Examining the integration of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) with the future structures of India’s Theatre Command system provides an opportunity to improve an important facet of national security. In essence, it involves two dimensions – Internal Security and Border Guarding including coastal areas. The nature and scale of threats across various borders are varied and coupled to the dynamics of their specific geopolitical and geoeconomic context. China and Pakistan represent the main threats which can also find combined expression. Much has changed since internal security, border guarding and coastal security were officially examined by a Group of Ministers as reflected in its Report in 2000 and the Naresh Chandra Committee in its Report in 2012. The creation of Integrated Theatre Commands is a recent political mandate for the Chief of Defence Staff. There is no clarity on the final structure that will be adopted. There is talk of two Continental Theatre Commands and a singular Maritime Theatre Command. The Continental ones could be a Northern Theatre Command primarily covering land borders with China, Myanmar and Bangladesh and a Western Theatre Command covering the land borders with Pakistan. The maritime space of the Indian Ocean Region and adjoining maritime spaces is supposedly the geographic reach of the Maritime Theatre Command. However, how the Indian hinterland will be distributed to these commands is still unknown. This article is limited to Sino-Indian border and coastal security and examines the imperatives for change with respect to the ITBP and the Indian Coast Guard.

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