Role of external state actors

Story hook

It is 18 June 2023. A bullet-riddled body lies outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. The deceased: Hardeep Singh Nijjar — Canadian Sikh, president of the gurdwara, and a man India had designated a terrorist under UAPA for his alleged role in Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) activities. Three months later, 18 September 2023, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau stands in the House of Commons and declares: "There are credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the Government of India and the killing of Mr. Nijjar."

Within hours, India is in its biggest diplomatic crisis with Canada in decades. Indian High Commissioner asked to leave; six Indian diplomats expelled October 2024; Canadian diplomats expelled in reciprocation. The Khalistan diaspora mobilises. G20 + Five Eyes intelligence-sharing complications. India insists Nijjar was a designated terrorist running training camps; Canada insists India crossed the line of acceptable state behaviour.

Around the same time, in November 2023, US federal court documents allege an Indian government employee directed an assassination plot against Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York. The Indian government commits to a high-level inquiry.

This is the external actor problem in 21st-century Indian security — a domain that goes far beyond Pakistan. It now includes Khalistani diaspora networks (Canada, UK, US, Australia), Chinese state surveillance + cyber operations, Maldives Indian-Out campaign, Bangladesh political shifts, Sri Lanka China relations, Myanmar junta interactions, and transnational organised crime + terror financing.

For UPSC, this unit asks candidates to think about external threats holistically — beyond conventional Pakistan-China calculus to include non-state diaspora actors, transnational networks, and great-power gray-zone operations.

Why this matters for UPSC

External actors shape India's internal security in five domains: military, terror, cyber, narcotics, ideological/diaspora. For Mains GS-III: standard question stems on "external threats" or "non-state actors." For Interview: nuanced understanding of Nijjar/Pannun + China gray-zone + diaspora-state nexus.