The PM Will Have to Turn a Network of File-pushers Into Obedient Pygmies
“Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible” goes the
adage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to disprove the apothegm
by not ringing out the old and ringing in the new, but by killing the
former with inexplicable kindness. He is keeping the arrows in his
quiver for use later. He has refrained from carrying out a massive purge
of senior civil servants, and instead called them over for tea. He made
them feel not only wanted but also useful for executing his mission. If
the number of letters and messages emanating from the PMO and Cabinet
Secretariat is any indication, it is evident that the new PM is
determined to convert impossible into a rare possibility, that is making
the bureaucracy work. The Cabinet Secretary is now advising various
ministries on how to keep offices clean, and respond to public
grievances within a week. According to PMO sources, Modi expects babus
to not only spend more time in the office but also follow a rigid
deadline regimen in taking decisions and implementing them. He considers
babus as the wheels of government and the ministers only as riders. The
Cabinet Secretary, who occupies the most modest and smallest room
compared to other Secretaries, has become the watchdog of all other
babus. Modi subscribes to the belief that the bureaucracy let India down
by creating more paperwork and perks for themselves rather than
generating a favourable environment for growth and development. The
articulate and powerfully connected officers have always mocked the
political leadership. For the past decade, they have been gleefully
claiming that the “bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by
pygmies”.
Rarely has any PM pierced India’s steel frame. But Modi
isn’t a run-of-the-mill leader. He is the second PM after Rajiv Gandhi
to interact directly with the 80 Secretaries sans their ministers.
Ignoring the past practice of giving the election manifesto to babus for
implementation, he advised them to submit their own plans of action and
clarify the problems in taking decisions. While other PMs had decided
to jettison politically inconvenient civil servants, Modi opted for
stability in administration. Since he needs only 100 out of the 7,000
officers belonging to various All India Services to push his calendar,
the PM has taken a calculated risk by retaining most of the existing
ones. Defying speculation and rejecting sycophantic lobbying by
colleagues and extraneous pressures, Modi has refrained from importing
Ahmedabad babudom to New Delhi. He is dismantling the ‘me and my type’
conglomeration who preferred to discuss important policy formulations
and Cabinet notes in the drawing rooms of Lutyen’s Delhi. For the past
decade, policies were formulated in boardrooms before they were
circulated among the Cabinet ministers. Modi is striking at the very
culture and practice of cultural and social coalition, and the nexus
between the golf club walkers and North and South Block occupants.
Contrary
to conventional practice, Modi has chosen to give yet another six-month
extension to the current Cab-Sec Ajit Kumar Seth, a 1974-batch officer
from Uttar Pradesh, which has given Modi 73 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats.
It is Seth’s second extension; when and if he retires in December 2014,
he would become the fourth Cabinet Secretary since 1950 to complete four
years in office. As the 29th Cab-Sec, Seth is conspicuous by his
invisibility. Yet Modi discovered in Seth the virtues which perhaps
influenced Manmohan Singh to catapult him as India’s Superbabu. But Modi
sprang a surprise by picking Nripendra Mishra as his principal
secretary. Mishra, again, is from UP and is known for his integrity and
impliability. Modi and Mishra are perhaps made for each other. Mishra
was chosen from a panel of four officers after passing a written test.
His other qualification is that the UPA government ignored him for the
post of Cabinet Secretary because of his opposition to the telecom
policy, which led to the 2G scam. Modi’s selection of Ajit Doval as the
National Security Advisor reflects the fact that the PM is not looking
for civil servants who are jacks of all trades but masters of none.
Doval is a daredevil spymaster who has risked his life innumerable
times, decimating terrorists on their own turf.
Modi’s emphasis on
bureaucracy stems from his experience in Gujarat, where disciplined,
efficient and low-profile babus faithfully implemented the government’s
agenda. NaMo chose competent, clean ministers, but also made sure that
they were given babus who would serve as his eyes and ears. Modi may be
an old hand in running a small state government, but he has little
experience in handling a complex multi-dimensional and multi-federal
governance system in which each minister is a state by himself. The
Union Government has so far been run on the principle of collective
responsibility, by which the entire Cabinet was responsible for the
success or failure of its policies. Now Modi is willing to break the
matrix and make himself accountable for both failure and success. It is
perhaps keeping in line with his thinking that while allocating various
departments to Cabinet ministers, an important insertion was made in the
Presidential communiqué—other than holding charge of various
departments, the PM would also handle key policy issues. NaMo obviously
feels that by giving him the mandate, people expect him to use the tools
of governance for delivery. Instead of dismantling the institutional
mechanism, he has chosen a way that gives him complete power to achieve
his objectives. During the past two weeks, Modi has quietly introduced a
Presidential form of governance, which depends heavily on bureaucracy
instead of political hierarchy. Modi hasn’t yet revealed the contours of
the structure he would like to put in place. But his actions signal the
arrival of a committed civil service in which a premium will be placed
on loyalty to the ideology of an individual. Modi’s test lies in taking
over the role of a giant who can turn a gargantuan network of
file-pushers into obedient pygmies.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla 
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