A military confrontation of any scale is usually imagined as a battle between or among rival armed forces. But there is another crucial aspect to — other fronts that need to be guarded during — such a conflict: this involves the augmentation of a nation’s civil defences and relevant infrastructure. The Union home ministry’s directive to conduct mock drills — the first ever since 1971 — in light of the heightened military confrontation between India and Pakistan across 244 civil defence districts with special emphasis on 100 such sensitive locations needs to be seen in this context. This test of preparedness has its own evolutionary history. E. Raghavendra Rao, a barrister from Nagpur, had borne the responsibility of familiarising the Indian population with this ritual during the Second World War. Subsequent wars in post-Independence India led to the inception of the Civil Defence Act; since 1985, the mechanism has evolved to include the testing of civil defence facilities in response to a conventional or a nuclear engagement. Several nations, including the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Japan and so on, have extensive civil defence mechanisms. India, over the years, has responded well to the globalised prioritisation of the safety of non-combatants and infrastructure during conflict. The process usually involves ascertaining the state of preparedness of responding institutions along with the training of ordinary people on ways of conducting themselves during periods of threat. Given that this, unfortunately, is turning out to be an era of war around the world, India will do well to keep its testing machinery of civil defences and installations well-oiled.
It must be pointed out that mock drills are not just about simulating a crisis. They involve interventions that may upend the normal flow of public life, albeit for a short while. For instance, locations identified for such an exercise would experience power outages, air raid sirens, the diversion of vehicular traffic as well as disruptions to cellular networks. These simulations bring a war, real or imagined, closer to the public consciousness. This is an important development in a culture where technology has transformed the aam aadmi into passive consumers of border confrontations from the comfort of their homes. Mock drills thus have the potential of bringing the inconveniences, if not the horrors, of war, only a wee bit of them, to the doorstep. This could be instrumental in shaping a collective sensibility against war.