On 18 November 2023 I was an invited speaker at a Round Table Discussion on Reconceptualising Security in the Siliguri Corridor, held at Allita Hotels & Resorts, Kurseong, West Bengal.
A narrow strip with national consequences
The Siliguri Corridor is the slim band of Indian territory that connects the north-east of the country to the rest of it, hemmed in by Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Everything moves through it: road and rail, power lines, fuel, telecommunications backbone, banking and government networks.
Security discussions about the corridor traditionally concentrate on terrain and troops. The round table set out to widen that frame, and that is where our contribution sat.
A corridor this narrow is not only a geographic chokepoint. It is a digital one.
The digital dimension
The same concentration that makes the corridor strategically sensitive also concentrates its digital dependencies. Fibre routes, power control systems, rail signalling, border management systems and the financial infrastructure serving the region all run through a small area. A disruption to any of them — whether by cyber attack, equipment failure or interference with satellite navigation — produces effects out of proportion to its size.
Cross-border cooperation matters here as much as technology. Neighbouring states, international partners and the private operators who actually own much of the infrastructure all have a part in keeping it resilient, and that is a diplomatic task as well as a technical one.
Thank you to the organisers and to the delegates who took the discussion beyond the usual boundaries of the subject.
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