Despite winning two consecutive Lok Sabha elections with a massive majority, the Modi government has often been criticized for its poor bench strength and ribbed about a talent deficit in its ranks.
It was perhaps, to silence his critics and raise the government’s profile that its media managers went into overdrive in the run-up to the Cabinet reshuffle to list out the educational and professional qualifications of the ministers picked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was declared with great pride, that the council of ministers includes seven PhDs, three MBAs, 13 lawyers, six doctors, five engineers and 68 graduates.
It was repeatedly emphasized that the new ministers were not only highly qualified but also experienced. The subtext being that these entrants will impart a degree of professionalism and efficiency to governance. It was a tacit admission that the Modi government had indeed failed to deliver. It mismanaged the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, and is struggling to get a grip on the floundering economy.
Faced with multiple challenges, Modi has picked former bureaucrats and leaders imported from other parties to refurbish his government’s image and to improve governance. This has predictably led to the conclusion that either the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) truly lacks talented and capable leaders who can handle important ministerial responsibilities or the Prime Minister prefers to deal with former civil servants.
There is some merit in the latter argument because even when he was Gujarat chief minister, Modi depended on a handful of bureaucrats and a few party colleagues like Amit Shah to implement his policies. Modi is credited with the view that civil servants are better equipped to understand his requirements and deliver on them, even if it means short-circuiting the system.
Consequently, the latest reshuffle has a record number of former civil servants who have been given charge of ministries which are critical for the revival of the economy. While former foreign secretary S. Jaishankar was inducted as Modi’s external affairs minister in 2019 itself, his senior colleague in the foreign service Hardeep Puri, who was then brought in as minister with independent charge, is now a Cabinet minister. He has been given charge of the petroleum ministry which is currently in the spotlight due to skyrocketing fuel prices. Puri will continue to handle the urban affairs ministry, a reward for vigorously defending Modi’s pet Central Vista project.
Then there is Raj Kumar Singh, who retired as Union home secretary, and is serving his second term in the Lok Sabha, having twice won the Arrah seat in Bihar. He, too, has been upgraded as a Cabinet minister and assigned to run the critical ministries for power and new and renewable energy which have been under his charge since 2017.
Singh is joined in the Cabinet by two more colleagues from his old service. Ashwani Vaishnaw and Ram Chandra Prasad Singh are former IAS officers who have opted for a political career. Vaishnaw did his engineering at IIT Kanpur and got an MBA from the US-based Wharton School. He was an Odisha cadre officer who acquitted himself well during the 1999 super cyclone but later joined the private sector and then jumped on to the political bandwagon. For a first-time minister, he has been given charge of major portfolios – railways, communications, and electronics and information technology. He has the onerous task of handling the ongoing face-off with micro-blogging site Twitter and streamlining the rail sector.
Bureaucrat-turned-politician Ram Chandra Prasad Singh is known for his proximity to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar who appointed him his chief secretary and later made him a Rajya Sabha member. Singh now heads the steel ministry, also vital for shoring up the economy.
Not only former babus but leaders imported from other political parties have also been rewarded with plum portfolios. Former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who played a critical role in the installation of a BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, has been appointed civil aviation minister in recognition of this heroic effort. Scindia has a challenging task ahead as the aviation sector has suffered huge losses due to the coronavirus pandemic. He also has to deal with the pending sale of the debt-ridden national carrier Air India, which is constantly mired in controversy.
Narayan Rane, who was with the Shiv Sena and had a brief stint in the Congress, is the new MSME minister. Like his other Cabinet colleagues, Rane also has his task cut out as the small and medium scale industries have borne the brunt of the economic downturn. In addition to his ministerial responsibilities, Rane also has an unstated political assignment – that of taking on his old party, the Shiv Sena, especially in Maharashtra’s coastal belt.
The Prime Minister’s latest choices have predictably fuelled a debate on whether bureaucrats make good politicians. The jury is still out as there is a view that former civil servants transition well into their new role as ministers because they are well-acquainted with government procedures and processes.
On the other hand, it is argued that though babus may be masters of the rule-book, politicians have a better understanding of the ground situation and have a finger on the pulse of the people. Their regular interactions with party workers and constituents provides them steady feedback on the prevailing public mood.
Ideally, the two should work together. Politicians provide inputs about the needs of the people while civil servants draw up the required policies to meet these demands and also implement them. But that's an ideal situation.
While it is known that Modi likes to deal with bureaucrats because they are trained to execute orders, he is also forced to rely on them because unlike the Congress, the BJP lacks sufficient experienced hands to run a government. The vast number of newcomers to Parliament has limited Modi’s choices when it comes to picking his ministerial team. Though the bulk of the appointments are driven by the need for social messaging and the demands of electoral politics, it is the small band of babus who serve as Modi’s frontline workers. Only time will tell if the bureaucrats-turned-politicians measure up to the task.
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