The government has done it again. When foreign secretary Sujatha Singh was axed unceremoniously in January this year to make way for S. Jaishankar, there was not a little unease in the top layers of government. Unpredictable fiddling with the steel frame — as the civil service has been described from the British days — makes for uncertainty, and can degrade bureaucracy morale.
So it was just presumed all round that cutting short the foreign secretary’s tenure was a one-off, an aberration that owed to the fact that Prime Minister Modi was especially well disposed towards
Mr Jaishankar, the ambassador in China whom the PM had got to know from the time he used to visit that country as Gujarat Chief Minister.
The ambassador was to retire within days and the government had to act expeditiously in order to retain him as the head of the foreign service. That somehow explained the shoddy act of giving marching orders to the incumbent.
But now the Modi government has knocked out the Union home secretary, L.C. Goyal, swiftly replacing him with Rajiv Mehrishi, the finance secretary. It appears the finance secretary too was about to superannuate and had to be given a berth quickly if the government wanted his services badly enough.
This cannot be a complete explanation, however. Mr Mehrishi could well have been given an extension in finance. It is evident, therefore, that he was wanted as head of the home ministry and Mr Goyal was edged out.
Sending top bureaucrats home prematurely is a thoroughly bad idea as it has an unsettling effect on administration. The civil service implements policy and a good working rhythm between it and the government is vital.
When the files weren’t moving, it may be recalled that then PM Manmohan Singh issued repeated appeals to senior officials that they won’t be prosecuted on grounds of corruption — such was the atmosphere of the time, with the CBI breathing down the necks of even retired officials and the judiciary monitoring certain cases — if a wrong judgement was made in good faith. Mr Modi, acknowledging the importance of an effective bureaucracy, too began his tenure by hosting top officials.
The civil servants heading important ministries are given a fixed tenure of two years so that they may have ample elbow-room. Ms Singh and Mr Goyal both had their term drastically cut without explanation at the behest of the PM. This could confirm fears that the PM wants to control key ministries through the top bureaucrats, bypassing the ministers. Mr Modi was known to follow this tack when he was Gujarat chief minister.
