Opinion | Indian Army : Contribution to Disaster Relief & Infrastructure Rebuilding in Kashmir

When disasters strike, the mountains of Kashmir echo not only with cries for help but also with the determined footsteps of soldiers who rush to answer them. The Army’s contribution to relief and rebuilding has become more than a duty.

Kashmir’s geography, a valley ringed by mountains, threaded by fast flowing rivers and dissected by fragile roads, makes it especially vulnerable to natural disasters. Over the last two decades the region has endured devastating floods, landslides and periodic avalanches that destroy homes, cut off communities and overwhelm civil services. In this difficult environment the Indian Army has routinely played a central role: conducting search and rescue, providing medical care and relief supplies, and critically for long term recovery, rebuilding and restoring vital infrastructure that reconnects isolated communities to essential services and markets. When floods or landslides strike, the Army’s strength lies in rapid mobilization and logistics. Troops, helicopters, engineers and boats are often among the first organised responders able to access cut off areas. Large scale operations such as the 2014 Jammu and Kashmir floods demonstrate this capability. The armed forces deployed thousands of personnel, engineers and aircraft to rescue stranded people and deliver food, medicine and shelter. Military medical teams set up temporary clinics, engineer units cleared debris, repaired roads and established makeshift bridges to restore movement for relief convoys. These actions kept life saving supplies moving during the critical early days after the disaster.

It is important to recognise that rescue is a shared effort. Academic analysis of the 2014 floods found that community members and local volunteers carried out a substantial share of immediate rescues, a reminder that army efforts often operate alongside, and in support of, courageous civilian action. This community led response complemented formal search and rescue, together saving many lives.Beyond extracting people from danger, the Army deploys medical teams and mobile clinics to treat injuries, prevent disease outbreaks and provide maternal and child health care where civilian health infrastructure has been damaged. Medical teams accompany rescue convoys, and field hospitals have been set up in the aftermath of floods and landslides. In many instances the Army’s logistics allow rapid cold chain support for vaccines and safe transport for critical patients, services that are indispensable when local hospitals are non functional or overwhelmed.

One of the most visible contributions of the Army in Kashmir is reconstruction of damaged transport links. The Army’s engineering corps has specialist capability to erect temporary and permanent bridges, repair key sections of road and restore communications corridors, enabling both relief operations and the flow of commerce. After major flood events, army engineers frequently construct Bailey bridges and provisional spans that reconnect villages to district centres, hospitals and marketplaces while permanent repairs are planned and executed. Such restorations are not merely conveniences. They are lifelines that reduce isolation, limit economic loss and accelerate recovery. Recent reports show this pattern continuing. In the wake of new flood events and infrastructure damage, army engineering units have been reported constructing bridges and restoring connectivity to cut off areas, underscoring the continuing importance of military engineering in post disaster recovery.

The Indian Army’s disaster response role in Kashmir extends beyond immediate rescue and short term reconstruction. Over decades the Army has implemented civic action and development programmes designed to strengthen local resilience and build goodwill. Operation Sadbhavana, or Goodwill, is the best known of these initiatives. It spans education through Army Goodwill Schools, health camps, water supply, electrification, vocational training and small infrastructure projects such as village roads, hand pumps and community buildings. These projects aim both to meet immediate needs and to raise long term human development indicators in remote and conflict affected areas. Government press releases and independent analyses document multiple such projects and quantify their scale in terms of schools run and funds deployed.Such programmes have practical disaster mitigation value. Improved local infrastructure, better educated communities and enhanced health provision reduce vulnerability to hazards and improve communities’ ability to cope when disaster strikes. For many villages, Army built water systems, repaired footpaths and small bridges have made subsequent emergency access and evacuations safer and more reliable.Effective disaster management in Kashmir is a multi actor effort. The Army routinely coordinates with civil administration, the National Disaster Response Force, police, local volunteers and humanitarian NGOs. Coordination centres and joint task forces are set up to deconflict airspace for helicopter operations, prioritise relief routes and allocate scarce resources. This interoperability, combining military lift capacity with civilian needs assessment and NGO distribution networks, has proven essential in large operations where no single actor can manage the logistical burden alone. The Army’s involvement in civilian tasks in Kashmir is not without complexities. The region’s fraught political history means military presence is often viewed through a security lens, and perceptions of army operations vary across communities. Transparency, community engagement and partnership with local actors are therefore crucial to ensure relief and reconstruction efforts are accepted and sustainable. Additionally, while the Army brings unique capabilities, long term reconstruction of large infrastructure such as major bridges, power grids and hospitals ultimately requires civil engineers, government funding and sustained public sector engagement.

There is also a policy discussion to be had about institutionalising civilian disaster capacities. Strengthening state disaster management bodies, expanding local search and rescue training, and investing in pre emptive flood mitigation infrastructure would reduce the recurrent burden placed on security forces. The Army’s civic projects can complement but not replace a robust civilian disaster management architecture. In Kashmir, the Indian Army has been a first responder, a builder of temporary and lasting connectivity, and a provider of humanitarian care. Its engineering units restore roads and bridges that revive trade and access, its medical teams treat the wounded and vulnerable when hospitals are incapacitated, and its civic programmes under Operation Sadbhavana and similar initiatives invest in human development and small-scale resilience. At the same time, effective disaster recovery in Kashmir depends on cooperation. The synergy of community volunteers, NGOs, civil administration and military logistics saves lives and speeds recovery. As climate variability increases the frequency of extreme weather events, strengthening that synergy by combining military readiness with empowered local disaster capacities and resilient infrastructure planning will be essential to reduce future losses and protect Kashmir’s communities.

Writer can be reached on syedjahanzeeb2@gmail.com