India, Feb. 27 -- The ministry of home affairs (MHA) released India's first comprehensive national counterterrorism policy this week. The policy, PRAHAAR, aims to address various types of terrorist acts and deny terrorists their support system. The document spells out seven pillars: Prevention; swift responses; aggregating internal capacities; human rights and rule-of-law-based processes; attenuating the conducive conditions enabling terrorism; aligning and shaping international efforts; and recovery and resilience. Although it is reasonably comprehensive, a few crucial facets have been overlooked. These could be included in subsequent iterations.

In our internal-security lexicon, insurgencies are characterised by the agency possessed by...