Workshop: Drafting an Indian Mission Cable
A capstone workshop on drafting a diplomatic cable from an Indian mission abroad — format, sourcing conventions, MEA house style, and signaling discipline.
The Form: Headers, Classification, and Distribution
A cable transmitted from an Indian mission to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in South Block, New Delhi, follows a standardized format codified in the MEA's internal Manual of Office Procedure and the Cipher Manual (last comprehensively revised in 2016). The header carries the originating mission (e.g., HICOMIND LONDON, EOI WASHINGTON, PMI NEW YORK), the addressee block (typically FOREIGN NEW DELHI with copies to relevant territorial and functional divisions), a classification line (RESTRICTED, CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, TOP SECRET — governed by the Manual of Departmental Security Instructions, 1994), a precedence indicator (ROUTINE, PRIORITY, IMMEDIATE, FLASH), and a subject line written in nominal-phrase form.
Distribution is consequential. A cable copied to PMO (Prime Minister's Office), NSCS (National Security Council Secretariat), and the Cabinet Secretariat (R&AW) signals that the reporting officer judges the content to require attention beyond the territorial division. Over-distribution is a known drafting fault; under-distribution risks the cable dying in the relevant Joint Secretary's tray. The Foreign Secretary's office, the External Affairs Minister's PS, and the relevant Additional Secretary form the standard senior readership for a Priority cable from a major capital.
The Structure: Summary, Body, Comment
MEA cables follow a three-part discipline borrowed loosely from Commonwealth practice and refined since the Pillai reforms of the 1960s. Paragraph 1 is the summary — a single tight paragraph stating what happened, who said what, and why it matters to India. Indian drafters traditionally open with "Begins:" and close with "Ends." though modern electronic cables on the eOffice/MEA SAP platform have relaxed this.
Paragraph 2 onward constitutes the body — factual reporting of the meeting, demarche, conversation, or event. Verbatim quotations are reserved for sensitive formulations (e.g., the interlocutor's exact phrasing on Kashmir, on the LAC, or on Quad alignment). Indirect reporting is the default. Sources are characterized but not named in body text: "a senior MFA official," "the Political Director," "a Track-1.5 interlocutor close to the PMO of [host state]."
The penultimate or final paragraph is the Comment (often labeled "Mission's Assessment" or simply "Comment:"). This is where the reporting officer's analytical judgment enters. House style demands that comment be clearly walled off from reporting — a confusion of the two is the single most common reason a cable is returned by the territorial Joint Secretary with the marking "redraft."
House Style and Indian Idiom
The MEA writes in formal Indian English with specific conventions. "The undersigned" refers to the head of mission or reporting officer. "This Mission" is used in lieu of "we." Pakistan is referred to as Pakistan (not "the Islamic Republic"); China is "China" or "PRC" depending on context — "mainland China" is avoided as it implies a Two-Chinas reading inconsistent with India's One-China position (recalibrated since 2010 when India stopped reiterating the formula in joint statements).
Dates follow DD Month YYYY. Sums are rendered in lakhs and crores only in domestic-facing notes; cables to FOREIGN use international notation. Acronyms are spelled out on first use except for a settled canon (MEA, PMO, NSA, EAM, FS, JS, HOM, DCM, CDA). The salutation "Dear [First name]" is reserved for semi-official D.O. (Demi-Official) letters from Foreign Secretary to ambassadors and never appears in cables proper.