From Reaction to Readiness

Flash floods and landslides in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have once again placed India’s disaster response machinery under strain. Despite the large-scale destruction, NDRF teams, along with military and paramilitary forces, have been carrying out rescues in remote areas where roads have collapsed and communication lines are down.

It is the kind of crisis for which the NDRF was created in 2006, but the scale and speed of deployments in recent years point to a broader strengthening of India’s disaster and internal security apparatus. Since 2019, the force’s capacity has grown through better equipment, advanced training, and a networked early warning system that now sends millions of alerts to residents in vulnerable zones. Officials say that in the past five years, NDRF and state disaster units have rescued over 1.5 lakh people and evacuated millions ahead of floods and cyclones.

That operational capacity has been built on larger budgets and new technology. The Centre allocated Rs 20,264 crore to state disaster relief funds and Rs 5,160 crore to the NDRF this year, alongside systems like the Lightning Alert platform, credited with saving lives in multiple states. These upgrades have taken shape during Amit Shah’s tenure, which, as of August 5, 2025, became the longest in India’s history for a Home Minister — 2,258 days, surpassing LK Advani’s record.

The disaster response efforts unfold against the backdrop of wider internal security changes under Home Minister Amit Shah’s tenure. From disaster relief to counter-insurgency, the past six years have seen the ministry push for speed in decision making, reach and tighter coordination across India’s sprawling security apparatus. Nowhere has that shift been more politically charged than in Jammu & Kashmir, where the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 set the stage for a broad security crackdown. Violent incidents in the Union Territory between 2019 and 2025 were 86 per cent lower than in 2004–09, official figures show. Security forces credit better intelligence sharing and targeted operations, even as political outreach and economic revival remain incomplete.

In the Northeast, Shah's approach blended negotiation with selective force. Twelve peace accords signed in six years have persuaded over 10,500 insurgents to surrender weapons. The footprint of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act has been sharply reduced, fully withdrawn from Tripura and Meghalaya and eased in other states — changes that ground officials say reflect an improved security climate, though cross-border smuggling and sporadic clashes persist.

The Maoist belt has seen perhaps the most dramatic contraction of violence. Once spread across vast tracts of central and eastern India, Left Wing Extremism is now largely confined to a few pockets of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Fatalities have fallen from more than 5,000 in 2009–14 to around 600 in the last six years. Since 2019, security forces have neutralised over 1,000 alleged Maoists and arrested nearly 7,000. Road building, mobile connectivity and local recruitment have been key levers, with the ministry setting an ambitious deadline of March 2026 to eliminate insurgency.

While the terrain battles have eased, new frontlines have opened where battles are fought without bullets. In the realm of cybercrime, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has emerged as a national nerve centre, blocking fraudulent communications, dismantling online extortion rackets and preventing financial losses amounting to thousands of crores.

As Amit Shah’s tenure moves into its seventh year, the imprint of his leadership runs from high-altitude rescue operations to the cyber labs in Delhi and the police stations of Bastar. Shah’s record is not merely one of longevity. It is also a rare blend of political continuity and administrative resolve to achieve results. The Home Ministry’s footprint has broadened — less dependent on a single strategy, more wired into technology, and built to move faster.

The writer is a senior journalist with a diverse editorial experience across leading national TV news channels. Views expressed are personal