Disaster as an Internal Security Threat to India: A Comparative Study of Natural and Man Made Disasters in India

Abstract

The word disaster originally taken from the French word “desastre” the word desastre is a combination of two words des and aster in this the meaning of the word ‘des’ is bad and the meaning of aster is ‘star’. Thus the word disaster refers to “bad or evil star”. According to The disaster management Act.2005 of Government of India, disaster means a catastrophe, mishap, calamity of grave occurrence in any area, arising from natural or manmade causes, of by accident or negligence which results in substantial loss of life or human suffering or damage to, and destruction of, property or damage to, or degradation of, environment, and is of such a nature of magnitude as to be beyond the coping capacity of the community of the affected area. Disaster is mainly divided in Natural disaster and manmade disaster. As per India is concerned out of it 35 States and Union Territories 27 are prone to Natural and Manmade disasters. Natural disaster includes Earthquake, Cloudburst, Cyclone, Drought, Tsunami, etc. and Manmade disasters include arms conflict armed conflict, technological and chemical disasters, and disasters that are not caused by natural hazards but that occurs in human sentiments.If we take and account from 2001 to September 2014 approximately 36,079 people lost their lives due to natural disasters. If we consider terrorists activities as a part of armed conflict which is considered as part of manmade disaster in between the year 2001 to 2014 approximately 6977 people lost their lives which includes 4375 civilians and 2602 security force personnel. By comparing these human casualties one can understand that more lives are lost because of natural disaster. That means government of India should focus equally on the management of natural disasters as on manmade disasters like terrorist attacks.