On May 7, 2025, the wail of air raid sirens will echo across Indian cities. Students will practice evacuation drills, civilians will rehearse blackout protocols, and critical infrastructure will be camouflaged. The last time this happened in India was in 1971, the year when India went to war with Pakistan, which resulted in the separation of East Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh.
These nationwide civil defence exercises, directed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), come amid escalating tensions with Pakistan following the tragic Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, which claimed 26 lives. The drills aim to enhance preparedness for potential hostile attacks, including air raids and drone strikes.
A Scene Not Witnessed in Decades
Across major Indian cities and border states, the Ministry of Home Affairs conducted full-scale civil defence exercises. These weren’t generic fire drills. They involved rehearsed evacuations, sirens signalling incoming attacks, and rapid sheltering protocols, akin to what Cold War nations once practised routinely. Schools were briefed days in advance. Emergency services were deployed in a standby. The operation was national in scope, synchronised in intent, and unmistakably pointed in message.
The timing isn’t lost on anyone. Barely a week prior, the Pahalgam terror attack killed close to 30 civilians, most of them Hindu. This raised tensions along the Line of Control. Pakistan has denied any role, but Indian intelligence agencies claim otherwise. China, meanwhile, continues to reinforce its positions in eastern Ladakh. Amid this, a flurry of public safety drills across civilian institutions signals a state apparatus shifting toward preparedness.
But this isn’t the first time such rehearsals have swept across a nation. To understand the gravity, we must turn to history.
Echoes of the Cold War
During the height of the Cold War, civil defence was a part of daily life in both the United States and the Soviet Union. In American schools, children were taught to “duck and cover” under desks at the sound of an air raid siren. In Moscow, citizens rehearsed metro evacuations that could double as bomb shelters. London had perfected this practice decades earlier during the Blitz in World War II, where civilians would rush to underground bunkers at the sound of incoming German aircraft.
The idea behind these drills wasn’t merely about saving lives, it was psychological readiness, infrastructure testing, and public mobilisation. Countries knew that in the age of nuclear weapons or aerial assaults, response time would be measured in seconds, not minutes.
India, too, has a history of such practices, though far more restrained. During the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan, sirens were tested across cities like Amritsar, Delhi, and Ahmedabad. Residents were advised to tape windows, dim lights, and move to shelters. Some schools even had basic bunkers installed in their basements.
After the 1999 Kargil War, there was a short-lived revival of interest in urban civil defence planning. But soon, with economic liberalisation in full swing and an emerging middle class eager to move past war stories, the sirens faded into obscurity.
The Return of Preparedness: What Changed?
Fast forward to 2025, and India’s geopolitical terrain looks markedly different.
- Multi-Front Pressures: India faces a realistic threat on three fronts — Pakistan in the west, China in the north, and increasingly, friction along the eastern front, especially following provocative statements from Bangladeshi leadership regarding the Northeast. This strategic encirclement has prompted Indian planners to revisit worst-case scenarios.
- Technological Threats: The rise of drone warfare, precision-guided munitions, and cyberattacks makes modern urban centres far more vulnerable than during past conflicts. Unlike previous wars confined to mountainous terrain or border outposts, future strikes could be aimed at power grids, communication hubs, or even educational institutions.
- Urbanisation and Civilian Density: India has got a massive urban sprawl. Cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, home to over 10 million people each, means any aerial threat carries potential for massive civilian casualties. Hence, preparedness becomes not just a military imperative but a civic one.
- Global Signals: Recent Israeli operations in Gaza, Russia’s continued campaign in Ukraine, and the Houthi drone strikes in the Red Sea region all show how rapidly airspace has become the new battlefield. India, watching closely, is recalibrating.
Anatomy of the May 7 Drills
According to the Times of India and ANI reports, the nationwide drills were orchestrated under the supervision of the Ministry of Home Affairs with coordination from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), state disaster management agencies, and municipal authorities.
- Siren Testing: Cities activated air raid sirens, particularly in areas near military bases, airports, and strategic installations. This was to test reach, clarity, and public reaction.
- Evacuation Protocols: Schools and colleges were asked to simulate evacuation routines. Some were directed to take shelter in basement zones or corridor lines, mimicking safe zones.
- Mock Attacks: A few cities conducted simulated air attack scenarios with dummy alerts — “missile incoming” or “aerial object detected” — and timed the institutional response.
- Public Participation: In towns like Pathankot and Jammu, citizens were seen participating in mock ambush response drills — lying flat, shielding heads, or relocating to shelters.
This isn’t mere optics. It’s data collection. Authorities now have real-world statistics on response times, sound coverage of sirens, and coordination gaps between agencies.
Civil Defence in India
While the Civil Defence Act, 1968 exists on paper, and the Directorate General of Civil Defence functions under MHA, its operational significance has often been minimal. Civil defence volunteers in most states are undertrained, under-equipped, and operate without public awareness.
India has roughly 5 lakh civil defence volunteers, but active and deployable numbers are far lower. Many cities lack public bunkers. Few schools have structured evacuation maps. Sirens, when installed, are often mechanical relics. Some of them played an active role during COVID crowd management, but still not a large portion of civil defence volunteers is active.
The May 7 drills may be the beginning of a long-overdue revitalisation of this apparatus.
Air Raid Sirens
Air raid sirens once symbolised a world teetering on the edge of war. Their iconic wail, rising and falling in pitch, was engineered not just to alert, but to instil urgency. Traditional sirens were mechanical, powered by motors that spun acoustic horns.
Today, most modern cities globally use digital sirens integrated with GPS, SMS alerts, and emergency broadcasting systems. India’s adoption remains uneven. The May 7 drills tested both older and newly installed systems. Reports from Chandigarh, for example, confirmed the successful activation of German-made electronic sirens covering a 1.5 km radius.
But India lacks a unified Emergency Alert System akin to the U.S. FEMA-run IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System), which can simultaneously push messages to phones, televisions, radios, and roadside screens. Such integration is crucial if India is to mount a serious civil defence programme.
Students and Schools: A Strategic Focus
Why are schools the centrepiece of these drills? The answer lies in demographic reality. Nearly 250 million Indians are enrolled in educational institutions. In any mass-casualty scenario, young students are among the most vulnerable. They are also the most likely to cause widespread panic if unaccounted for.
Training children builds generational muscle memory. Just as Cold War-era drills trained generations of Americans and Russians to react instinctively, India is possibly investing in early-stage public resilience. Schools in Delhi, Punjab, and even West Bengal reported full compliance on May 7, with teachers receiving prior manuals and drill instructions.
Some educators have raised concerns that such drills create anxiety. But within the strategic community, the argument is simple: war doesn’t give warnings, drills do.
Is This a Prelude to War?
Not necessarily! But it’s an acknowledgement that peace cannot be taken for granted.
India’s top leadership has consistently maintained that it prefers diplomatic de-escalation over military confrontation. But the preparedness signals a shift in state posture from reactive to proactive. In past decades, public safety drills only followed wars or terror attacks. Today, they precede potential flashpoints.
The induction of the Igla-S missile systems, the deployment of additional paramilitary forces along sensitive borders, and the civil defence exercises all point to one truth: the Indian state is dusting off playbooks written decades ago.
What Needs to Happen
- Upgrade Siren Infrastructure: Cities must install digitally controlled sirens with redundancy backups and integration into smart city grids.
- Public Awareness Campaigns: Much like Japan conducts earthquake drills and runs public ads, India must demystify civil defence for citizens.
- Institutional Training: From metro drivers to school teachers, structured civil defence modules should be built into training regimes.
- Integrated Alert Systems: A mobile-first nationwide alert system, multilingual and accessible, must be developed.
- Public Shelter Infrastructure: Urban planning must begin allocating funds and space for underground shelters or reinforced safe zones.
In 2025, when a siren blares in the heart of an Indian city, it’s no longer dismissed as a test gone wrong. It’s a signal not of war’s inevitability, but of the state’s readiness to confront the unthinkable.
The Cold War taught nations that preparation isn’t paranoia. In today’s India, with skirmishes flaring, alliances shifting, and airspace contested, civil defence is a responsibility.
And perhaps, on May 7, the sound of sirens will be more than a warning. It will be a reminder.
India’s decision to run full-scale civil defence drills points to a future shaped by hard lessons from the past. With the memory of the 1971 India-Pak war still alive in policy circles, the country is preparing for contingencies with a seriousness not seen in decades.
