SECTION B
Essay
125 marks
The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
WRITE IN
90 min
1,000–1,200 words
Reading the topic
The line, used by President John F. Kennedy in his 1962 State of the Union address, means preparing for trouble in good times, when resources and calm make it possible. The examiner expects an essay on foresight in personal life, economic policy, disaster management and governance.
ThesisGood times are the only real window for preparation, and individuals and governments that use prosperity to build buffers suffer far less when crises come.
Dimensions to cover
- 1Economy: fiscal and foreign exchange buffers built during growth years decide whether a country can absorb a shock without humiliation
- 2Disaster management: early warning systems and shelters built in calm years save thousands of lives when cyclones strike
- 3Public health: investment in surveillance and hospital capacity before a pandemic costs less than emergency response after it
- 4Individual: savings, insurance and preventive health care are personal versions of repairing the roof
- 5Politics: electoral cycles reward visible spending over invisible preparation, which is why foresight is rare
- 6Climate: adapting cities and agriculture now, while losses are still manageable, is far cheaper than reacting later
Counter-view
- The counter-argument is that preparing for every possible crisis diverts scarce resources from urgent present needs. The essay should answer that prudent preparation is targeted at likely risks, and that the cost of neglect, as past crises show, is usually far greater than the cost of readiness
Open and close
- Open: Open with Odisha's coast in October 1999, villagers with nowhere to shelter from the super cyclone, and then the same coast in 2013, when nearly a million people were moved to safety before Phailin arrived
- Close: Conclude that foresight must be made institutional, through rules, funds and systems, because the sunshine years never feel urgent enough on their own
Where marks usually go
- Writing a disaster management GS answer and ignoring personal, economic and political dimensions
- Treating the line as only about literal infrastructure maintenance
- Failing to explain why preparation is neglected in good times, which is the core insight of the topic
Examples that fit
- HistoryIn 1991 India faced a balance of payments crisis with foreign exchange reserves covering only weeks of imports and had to pledge gold, a lesson in failing to build buffers in better years.Reserve Bank of India, History of the RBI, Volume IV; Economic Survey 1991-92
- CaseAfter the 1999 super cyclone killed about 10,000 people, Odisha built shelters and evacuation systems, so the much larger cyclone Phailin in 2013 caused very few deaths.Odisha State Disaster Management Authority; NDMA reports on Cyclone Phailin (2013)
- CaseThe Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 to 2030 shifts the global focus from responding to disasters towards reducing risk in advance.UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Sendai Framework (2015)
- StoryAesop's fable of the ant who stores grain in summer and the grasshopper who sings and then starves in winter is the oldest form of this lesson.Aesop's Fables
- CaseThe Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 sought to bind governments to deficit targets so that fiscal space would exist when a downturn arrived.FRBM Act, 2003; Ministry of Finance