ABSTRACT
Any consideration of India’s response to a nontraditional chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attack (CBRN) must cater for the ability of the country to marshal its resources and expertise to deal with the effects of such an attack. The most notorious instance of the use of CBRN weapons by a non-state actor was the 1995 Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway network by the Aum Shinrikyo religious cult. One outfit that gets completely neglected in discussing India’s capability to respond or otherwise cope with the effects of either a traditional or nontraditional CBRN attack is the Civil Defence Organization which is a volunteer force intended for mobilisation in wartime to provide civil defence support. After a brief flurry of activity during the Second Word War, the Civil Defence concept once again received some degree of priority in the period immediately after the Sino-Indian conflict of October 1962.
