Narendra Modi government; Of kites & wild arrows

Mumbai: Narendra Modi wanted a 100-day honeymoon, but he says he didn’t even get a 100 hours. Whose fault is that? Not the electorate’s: Mr Modi’s campaign raised expectations to such a pitch that people who voted for him (at the ballot box) and people who voted for him (in television studios), expected him to walk on water the moment he became Prime Minister. As it happens he should be grateful that he has so much goodwill that no one is yet saying he sank like a stone.

So robust was his election campaign, and so consistent was his message for action, that even a die-hard non-admirer like me expected something out of the ordinary. But my personal expectations were lowered very quickly. Do you know how quickly? At the swearing-in itself. Until then, Mr Modi had handled everything with an incredibly deft touch: the genuflection on Parliament’s steps, his speech to the BJP parliamentary party where he broke down in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, his shunning of the aggressive electoral rhetoric against the Gandhis and the Congress Party, the invitation to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation country leaders including Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif… Here, one thought, was a man who knew where all the right buttons were, and when to press them.

And then came the swearing-in. There wasn’t anything wrong with the ceremony, I hasten to add: it was, as expected, stultifying in its boringness — but sometimes there is safety in dullness. What made me suddenly aware of the stark reality facing India’s new Prime Minister was the parade of people being sworn in. Was this the best and brightest of our country taking sacred oaths that they would run their ministries honestly and to the best of their abilities? You and I could have chosen a better lot from our circle of friends and acquaintances. But that’s hardly Mr Modi’s fault: it’s the fault of our system. An American President can pick the CEO of General Motors or the president of Harvard University or the CEO of the Bank of America for his key posts. Our PM has to do with the politicians who win elections and we all know that winning elections has nothing to do with either competence or talent or your ability to handle complex issues. If Mr Modi had to really usher in his achche din, it had to be through this lot.

He has tried to overcome this starter’s block handicap by a show of assertiveness, which no previous PM has exhibited. The first example of this was his meeting with secretaries and other senior bureaucrats in his very first few days in office and giving them the message that he was empowering them to act fearlessly. What does that mean?

I take it as meaning that they could, where need be, bypass their ministers if the ministers were taking obviously wrong or motivated decisions. The insistence on long hours, working on weekends, etc. was an extension of this.

Mr Modi’s next step was unprecedented: he took away from his Cabinet colleagues the simple privilege of choosing their own personal secretaries and other private staff. He did this even to Rajnath Singh, his No. 2, the home minister of India, the BJP president and his closest ally.

An earlier general edict in this connection was commendable: do not hire your relatives as personal staff — a practice which had become endemic. But stopping everyone from choosing their own staff? (Contrast that with the PM’s actions in choosing his own personal staff and senior Prime Minister’s Office and other civil services positions — he has brought in people who worked with him in Gujarat, in one case even bringing in an ordinance to overcome regulatory obstacles).

But by taking away this basic privilege from his ministers, Mr Modi has ensured a number of things. First, ministers’ personal staff will owe their loyalty not to their minister, but to the PMO. Second, this will stop ministers building mini-empires for themselves. Third, this will be a curb on possible corrupt practices going unchecked till they become large-scale scams.

But however much Mr Modi tries to concentrate power in his own hands, India is not Gujarat, and the Prime Minister of India cannot function like the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
In this context, it will be interesting to know at what level two important — and disastrous — decisions were taken. The first was the edict about Hindi usage. We have seen that Mr Modi himself, Mr Singh, Sushma Swaraj and other key ministers are happiest when they speak Hindi. No one can possibly object to that; in fact, which of us would object to a minister speaking in fluent Hindi rather than fractured English? And why shouldn’t India’s PM speak to his foreign counterparts through an interpreter as so many world leaders do? I would personally be happier to know that our PM used a language he was comfortable in to articulate the nuances of policy, rather than stumble through them in an alien language.

But impose Hindi nationally? Why would anyone flog a very dead horse this way? We have been through the question of Hindi as a national language years ago, when the severe objections of southern, eastern and north-eastern states were expressed in no uncertain terms. Did Mr Singh fly this particular kite on his own? Or was the flight endorsed by the PM?

The second is the unprecedented hike in railway fares, especially the ones announced for Mumbai’s suburban trains. No one will contest that populism has kept passenger fares down to an unsustainable level, and that they needed to be raised significantly. But all in one go? Which politician could not see the overwhelming public outcry over this? Question: was it the railway minister or the PM who took the decision?

If the decisions were Mr Modi’s he has blundered twice in his first 30 days, and even if he had been granted a 100-day honeymoon, the bride would have cut it short right then and there.
If we give Mr Modi the benefit of doubt in both cases, it will show the new Prime Minister the limits of his reach: however much he might want to take power in his own hands, there will always be wild arrows shooting in the air.

Like Harsh Vardhan’s, his health minister, and his weird views on sex education. Now you know why my heart sank as I watched the swearing-in ceremony.

The writer is a senior journalist