When walls replace wisdom Evaluating security instruments in complex Constitutional spaces

Nil Konsam
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting-----Sun Tzu
In a Constitutional democracy, the legitimacy of State action rests not solely on authority, but on reasoned proportionality, institutional coherence, and public confidence. Measures that significantly affect territory, livelihoods, and long settled social arrangements, particularly in sensitive border regions, must therefore be assessed not only for intent, but for effectiveness, sequencing, and long term systemic impact.
This analysis examines the increasing reliance on physical border fencing as a principal security instrument in parts of India’s North East. It does so within the undisputed Constitutional framework that vests the Union with responsibility for National security and border management. The question addressed here is not whether the State may act, but whether specific instruments, when elevated from tactical aids to primary strategies, are optimally suited to the nature of the challenges they are intended to address.
Constitutional and Policy Framing
Under the Constitution, border management and internal security fall squarely within the competence of the Union. The legitimacy of such action is not in question. Constitutional governance, however, also demands that measures adopted be proportionate to identified threats, responsive to context, and capable of achieving stated objectives without generating avoidable secondary consequences.
Physical barriers are one among several legitimate tools available to the State. The issue examined here is whether their expanded use reflects strategic necessity, or whether it risks substituting visible infrastructure for deeper governance, coordination, and capacity building requirements in regions marked by complex terrain and social composition.
Contextual Assessment of the Manipur Crisis
The renewed emphasis on border fencing followed the events of 3 May 2023 in Manipur. That sequence invites policy examination. To date, there has been no publicly articulated attribution, through official statements, diplomatic escalation, or formal documentation, establishing direct involvement of the Myanmar State in initiating or sustaining India’s internal disturbances.
While diplomatic engagement is often confidential, the absence of any formal attribution or escalation necessarily limits the analytical weight that can reasonably be assigned to external State causation. This places the primary focus, for policy purposes, on domestic administrative, political, and conflict management dynamics.
Myanmar’s internal instability contributes indirectly to regional pressures, including migration and illicit flows. However, the proximate triggers and sustaining factors of the Manipur crisis, relating to land governance, political representation, reservation policy, and administrative authority, are domestically situated and Constitutionally governed. Effective responses must therefore correspond to the locus of causation.
Spatial and Administrative Realities
A spatial analysis of the violence further informs this assessment. The most intense and sustained incidents occurred in and around the Imphal Valley and its adjoining foothills, areas characterised by dense administrative presence, established transport networks, and long standing socio economic interdependence.
This pattern is analytically relevant. Communities that later became polarised had coexisted for decades across valley hill interfaces and within hill districts without persistent large scale breakdowns of order. The rapid escalation and displacement observed after May 2023 is therefore more consistent with acute stress on governance, mediation, and early warning mechanisms than with gradual structural divergence.
With the partial exception of Moreh, a border town shaped by distinctive commercial and migratory dynamics, most major incidents occurred at considerable distance from the international boundary. This geographic distribution complicates explanations that prioritise border permeability as the principal driver and instead directs attention toward internal coordination and conflict management capacity.
Illicit Economies and Enforcement Logic
Insurgency and narcotics trafficking are frequently cited in support of expanded fencing. These concerns are legitimate, but require precision in diagnosis. Comparative experience indicates that illicit economies persist where physical access intersects with institutional vulnerability, selective enforcement, and weak accountability.
Borders are a necessary element of control, but not a sufficient condition for dismantling complex illicit networks. Such networks adapt to physical obstacles through route diversification, technological innovation, and exploitation of administrative gaps. Physical barriers may disrupt specific corridors, but without parallel institutional strengthening, they risk displacement rather than resolution of the underlying activity.
Operational Constraints of Static Infrastructure
Physical fencing also presents inherent operational limitations. Construc- tion is phased, uneven, and prolonged. During extended implementation, security pressures are redistributed across geography and time. Adaptive actors respond by shifting activity toward less regulated segments or interior routes.
From a strategic perspective, this raises concerns about rigidity and long term resource commitment. Static infrastructure requires permanent guarding, maintenance, and monitoring. It fixes personnel and assets along predictable alignments, reducing flexibility in environments where threats are adaptive and mobile.
Strategic literature and historical experience consistently caution against over reliance on fixed defences in complex terrain. Effectiveness ultimately depends not on scale alone, but on institutional integrity, coordination, and legitimacy.
Lessons from India’s Own Security Experience
India’s experience in the North East offers instructive precedent. Durable stability has historically emerged not from physical separation, but from political accommodation, dialogue, and administrative integration.
The resolution of the Mizo movement and the long term management of Naga political aspirations demonstrate that negotiated legitimacy and institutional inclusion can succeed where coercive or static measures alone cannot. These outcomes were achieved within Constitutional frameworks and did not rely on extensive physical barriers.
An Alternative Emphasis: Common Operating Environment
Given the region’s geography and social complexity, greater emphasis on a Common Operating Environment (COE) warrants serious consideration. A COE integrates intelligence, surveillance, mobili- ty, logistics, and inter-agency coordination into a shared operational framework.
Persistent aerial surveillance, combining unmanned and selective manned platforms, provides terrain coverage that fencing cannot practically achieve. When fused with ground level human intelligence, particularly from local communities, it enables anticipatory detection rather than reactive response.
Mobility remains central. Smaller, well supported units capable of rapid redeployment retain initiative more effectively than forces tied to fixed alignments. Rotary wing assets, in particular, compress response times, enable all-weather access, and enhance medical and logistical support across difficult terrain.
A COE based approach is inherently scalable and adaptive. Assets can be reallocated in response to evolving threat perceptions, preserving strategic flexibility and economy of force, attributes that static infrastructure cannot provide.
Fiscal and Societal Considerations
From a fiscal perspective, adaptive capabilities are incrementally upgradable and responsive to technological change. Extensive fencing involves high capital expenditure, long construction timelines, and recurring maintenance costs. Rebalancing investment toward adaptive systems represents not a reduction in security commitment, but a recalibration toward effectiveness.
There is also a broader societal dimension. The North East is not merely a frontier zone; it is a historically continuous civilisational space. Policies that significantly alter lived geography must account for cultural, emotional, and historical ties to land. Measures perceived as externally imposed or insensitive to local context risk eroding trust, regardless of intent.
Conclusion
Physical barriers may delineate territory, but they do not by themselves generate durable security or legitimacy. In Constitutional governance, effectiveness lies in proportionality, adaptability, and public confidence. Where institutions are responsive and inclusive, reliance on walls diminishes. Where institutional capacity is strained, walls risk becoming symbols of distance rather than protection.
Strategic advantage, as classical theory and modern experience alike suggest, lies not in static infrastructure alone, but in understanding and engaging human terrain. In regions shaped as much by history and identity as by geography, security that endures must ultimately be built with people, supported by institutions, and guided by restraint.