INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AHMEDABAD

PGP 2017-19
ANALYTICAL WRITING
WAC

Exercise 1

Read the following passage1 and answer the following:

i) Examine the line of reasoning underlying the conclusion and assess its strength.
ii) What are the assumptions being made about the value of an Internal Security Ministry?
iii) What kind of evidence has been provided to support the call for setting it up?
iv) What kinds of evidence/reasons might be offered by someone who wished to counter the
assumptions and claims?

Following the November 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai, there is a glaring need for a new
administrative architecture for security. It starts with the identification of a longstanding malaise in
Indias security bureaucracy the use of administrative deux ex machina to evade the kinds of
sustained work and attention to detail that are needed to fix deep-rooted problems. The tragedy
provides a useful prism to reflect on the problem. India possessed a copious mass of intelligence
leads suggesting the Lashkar-e-Taiba was planning an attack on Mumbai. But it failed to capitalise on
these leads both because there was no single-point authority and because the intelligence services
lacked the necessary technological and human resource capabilities. The Mumbai Police made
strenuous efforts to deal with the attacks but clearly lacked the resources and the training. The
National Security Guards less-than-brilliant response to the fighting stemmed from poor training
and leadership issues. None of these failures, and others too numerous to enumerate here, have
been properly audited by an independent, public enquiry. As the Centre plans to revive the National
Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) project it is good to remember that had there been an NCTC in
place during these attacks, it would have lacked the capabilities to handle events with any greater
efficiency. What is needed is an Internal Security Ministry to facilitate the development of
capabilities to effectively handle the challenges faced by the country in this area.

1
Based on an excerpt from http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/How-to-face-security-
challenges/article16855300.ece
The author reasons that the failure of the Indian security apparatus to prevent the Mumbai terror
attacks stems from not having a single point authority and lacking the technology and manpower to
utilise it. Further, it is declared that the counter-offensive was less than stellar. This is ascribed to a
lack of preparedness and poor training of the Police and the NSG. The author thus concludes that we
need a central agency to improve the preparedness of the Indian security apparatus to prevent and
deal with such attacks. No evidence has been provided to support the claim that Indias
preparedness, as well as response to the attacks, was less-than-stellarse claims. In fact, the author
states that there has not been a proper audit of the failures leading to and exacerbating the attacks
thus undermining her own reasoning. In absence of such an audit, the authors conclusions appear
to be views assumptions rather than established facts.

The author assumes that the Internal Security Ministry would not also fall prey to the administrative
malaise affecting the rest of the current agencies. They further assume that the revived NCTC would
be similar to its previous incarnation. It has been ignored that the revived NCTC might have a
different mandate and set of responsibilities because of the criticisms highlighted against it. The
critical difference between the NCTC and an ISM seems to be, that the NCTC deals with terror while
the ISM would deal with all internal security related mattersthat of scope, one is a centre while the
other is a ministry. Thus the author assumes that the ISM would be better equipped to deal with
domestic security threats compared to the present architecture.The author thus assumes that an
ISM would be better.

The author states that if the NCTC being set up would be similar to the one which existed previously,
the situation would not have improved. Additionally, the author, mentions the attack and talks
about the copious lot of information. Apart from this everything shared by the author seems to be
their views and conclusions rather than solid evidence.

The presence of copious information does not translate to the presence of specific actionable
information. For all we know, there might have been copious information regarding plans to attack
all major cities of India. Further, the security forces were successful in dispatching the terrorists and
even catching one alive. This seems to be a testament towards their abilities rather than poor
performance. Third, setting up an ISM in response to a terrorist attack seems to be an overreaction.
Rather we should focus on improving the proposed NCTC itself.