The only unambiguous message coming out of the massive Cabinet reshuffle is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is rattled by the negative publicity he has earned in India and abroad over the past few months. The blunt dismissal of three senior ministers – Telecom & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Information & Technology Minister Prakash Javadekar bears testimony to that.
The general perception that Covid was mismanaged, triggering a spate of negative reports in international media, and the ugly war with tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter troubled Modi more than the hostile perceptions about the economic slide and attacks on India’s secular fabric. Modi has never demonstrated such unease and desperation to reinvent himself as was manifested in what is being billed as the largest-ever reshuffle.
What is disturbing, however, is the accompanying bouquet of confusing signals. How come the punishing taskmaster who sacked non-performing ministers became an angel of mercy for Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, under whose guidance the economy fell into an abysmal pit? If Piyush Goyal’s performance in the Ministry of Railways wasn’t satisfactory, is there any evidence of exemplary work in the commerce ministry that he has been allowed to retain? If Dharmendra Pradhan failed to handle Petroleum well, what is the guarantee he will do better in education? And if they were considered efficient ministers who couldn’t deliver in particular departments but added value to the government, seasoned politicians Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar were in government long enough to have learnt the ropes and could well have been retained.
The merit-&-performance criteria, applied dispassionately, could have put many others like Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar on the block. But there is more to the reasons for the changes than what meets the eye. Questions will be raised as to whether a Giriraj Singh is more valuable to a talent-deficit government than a Ravi Shankar Prasad and why somebody like Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, whose intellectual credentials were always in doubt, was made the education minister in the first place.
Spin doctors are trying to explain that talent and qualifications have been given special attention while making these changes. The induction of Ashwini Vaishnaw, an IIT engineer and Wharton MBA who was also an IAS officer, has generated much curiosity. While the importance of technocrats and domain experts in the key role in governments was stressed by the astonishing success of Dr Manmohan Singh, there have been numerous discouraging examples as well.
Never forget that the much-discredited Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was an allopathic doctor. And if this principle indeed was being applied, Ravi Shankar Prasad, who has been removed as law minister, has much better credentials as lawyer than his successor Kiran Rijiju. Formulas and principles are applied in politics as per convenience; Nirmala Sitharaman neither had any administrative nor political experience to handle key portfolios like defence and finance while Nitin Gadkari, generally known as an efficient administrator, has not been allowed to enter the top hierarchy.
While Vaishnaw’s induction is welcome, the decision to give him both Railways and Information Technology betrays the talent deficit in the government despite such a massive expansion. While his background as an IAS officer and qualification as an MBA will definitely be an asset for the ministry of railways which is witnessing drastic changes, the Prime Minister obviously wanted somebody with international exposure, greater sophistication and finesse, to deal with global firms. Vaishnaw’s stints in the American company General Electric, one of the world’s largest and Siemens, a British giant, apart from his Wharton links, will definitely help him avoid confrontational relations with global companies.
Modi, whose control over the government cannot be overstated, has made a timely intervention to make some course corrections but a lot will depend on his own instincts and dynamism that will finally shape the impulses of the ministers. Modi cannot lay the entire blame for failures and misadventures at his ministers’ door, as no government in India’s history has been so PMO-centric as this one. Modi is rightly being described as the engine of this government.
Whether he intends to change his style of functioning and empower the ministers to work freely will be known in due course. If the old style of PMO-controlled system continues to undermine the Cabinet system, nothing much should be expected to change except the tone and tenor of governance, with these changes. For substantive changes, the Prime Minister will have to lead creatively and show flexibility, exploiting everybody’s potential to the hilt.
