The Cabinet reshuffle effected by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday has turned out to be an exercise whose real meaning is hard to fathom, although it did lead to the elevation of Nirmala Sitharaman as the nation's defence minister. No woman before has held the defence portfolio exclusively, and this may be seen as the PM's appreciation of Ms Sitharaman's well-known capacity for sustained hard work without seeking the limelight. Some see in the move a blow for gender parity in the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), which earlier had only one woman member in a group of four (the ministers of home, defence, external affairs and finance), though it is doubtful this was an express objective of the reshuffle.
This is a government where power is concentrated in the PMO. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has been reduced to helping individuals in distress through her tweets, with policy being handled in the PMO. Now, some apprehend, the new defence minister will become the real PR of her ministry with the PMO bureaucrats taking real charge. The economic scene is especially difficult. The agricultural economy is bad. Unemployment is raging. Demonetisation shook up the economy in negative ways. The GST’s implementation is an added worry that has arisen at the same time as the adverse fallout of demonetisation. The overall scenario needs an energised council of ministers along with an appropriate political direction. The chopping and changing of ministers does not reflect any steps in the first two areas, while we must await changes in the third, namely, in policy recalibration. Then why change the ministers who have been sent packing? Are those that remain of higher calibre?
For instance, what has been the contribution of agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh in meeting the challenge of agriculture? A long list of examples will be obvious to many. Uma Bharti and Suresh Prabhu were found not to have fulfilled their mandate and have been moved — Mr Prabhu to the important commerce ministry, where it is extremely important to push up exports in a not very hospitable world environment.
A number of former bureaucrats have been roped in as ministers of state, but not in areas where they have worked in their professional lives. One of them, K.J. Alphons, who has a good reputation in Kerala, has apparently been brought in for the explicit political purpose to enable the BJP-RSS to make inroads into Kerala’s Christian community. But the others, obviously good people, are on the same flat turf as the traditional politicos. This reshuffle is meant to propel the government to safety as it approaches the next Lok Sabha election. The time for that is, however, fairly short.
