The capacity of a system, community or society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure. This is determined by the degree to which the social system is capable of organising itself to increase its capacity for learning from past disasters for better future protection and to improve risk reduction measures.

No description or commentary of India can be without the word resilience. We have seen use and abuse of the term in countless articles and journals waxing eloquence on the nature of India, its people, history or economy. Whether it manifests in the way the stock markets rebound or in the way we regroup, or across our history textbooks.