Unruffled Shuffle

There is nothing a politician won’t do for a make-over when the going is tough. It provides a temporary reprieve from scrutiny of all other issues and makes the make-over the focus and a topic of “new beginnings”. The “Cabinet Reshuffle” is the latest make-over although I wonder why it’s called a “reshuffle” when it is actually the first shuffle in ModiSarkar. There have been some ministers in ModiSarkar who never deserved their jobs in the first place. That they managed 7 years in office despite their incompetence is quite a surprise. One could say better late than never but the whole exercise needs a closer look. At the very start, Modi announced a new ministry for “Cooperation”. This is meant to give a huge impetus to the cooperative movement in the country. Although, other than some commodities (like milk or fertilizer) and housing industry, the cooperative business hasn’t gone very far. Cooperative banks, in particular, have charted a poor record. Thus, this is not the most exciting idea as claimed:

The bigger tragedy of this cooperation ministry is that it has been given to the most incompetent failure in ModiSarkar – Amit Shah. Obviously, this Biskoot has been added to his profile to dissipate the harsh criticism that Shah has been facing all around over his failures. Let’s leave that aside for a moment. According to reports, 43 new ministers have been added to the govt while 12 have been dropped. This means a net addition that takes the total to a maximum permissible limit of around 78. This means that all the pulls and pressures of political and electoral compulsions have been accommodated, especially with the UP elections coming up. Stats suggest there are 20 SC/ST ministers and 27 OBC ministers, so the caste factor has been attended to. There are 7 ministers from UP and 11 women. So, it’s quite a “Rainbow” formation of Modi’s “Garib, Vanchit, Pichdit” class. Take a look at the “dirty dozen” that were dropped to bring in 43 new ministers:

I am sure some of us didn’t even know that many of the names were ministers. Among big ministries, Pokhriyal is stated to have quit because of his failing health. Javdekar should have never been an MP in the first place. Why were RS Prasad and Dr. Harshvardhan dropped? Prasad didn’t do anything wrong but his protracted exchanges with Twitter, foolish police raids and all of it ending with nothing repeatedly damaged the image of the govt and Modi. Constant barking without the will to bite shows the govt as a wimp and though Prasad is gone, ModiSarkar remains a wimp. Twitter has finally told GOI in Delhi HC that it can act if there is some violation and need not go to court.

Harshvardhan’s case is a lot more complex. He too had not really done anything extremely wrong but made foolish statements frequently. He also took battle with Ayurveda which is in conflict with the govt’s own position on Ayurveda. The second wave of Covid caused a lot of damage to Modi’s image. He looked lost – half caught in election campaigns and half caught in ignorance of what was going on. As soon as the campaign stopped, because of a thrashing by the Madras HC, Modi was firefighting for oxygen and other medicines. Coupled with this was the worldwide bad press Modi was getting which the Maida Lump Javdekar was incompetent to combat. Modi had gone into a hiding in a hole for a few weeks and came out only when he was able to announce a new vaccine supply program from June 21. Getting rid of Harshvardhan partly washes the sins of mishandling of the Covid second wave and the vaccine bungling. In short, other than these 3 ministers the other names were not even being discussed by the public.

The 43 new entrants/upgrades come from a variety of domains and experience. 13 Lawyers, 6 Doctors, 5 Engineers, 7 Former Civil Servants and 12 others. Some big changes include shifting of Railways from Piyush Goyal and MSME from Nitin Gadkari. Both of them are considered “performing” ministers so that change is somewhat inexplicable. The other major shift is of Civil Aviation from Hardeep Singh Puri to JM Scindia. Although, a minister dedicated to Civil Aviation is not a bad idea. Following are the major changes with new entrants to ministries that have been re-allocated. While we must wish them well, do not expect great dramatic changes in performance as the top management of the govt and BJP as a party remains unaltered:

TOI reports 42% of ministers have declared criminal cases against them. This now seems to be a standard feature of any govt in India. No govt can be formed without a minimum number of those with criminal cases. There are, of course, caste calculations with 20 SC/ST and 27 OBCs included in what is now a giant ministry with 78 ministers in total. There are also 11 women in the ministry. But a closer look reveals that all the key ministries remain with the old hands barring a few here and there. The new ones are mostly allocated ministries of lesser lipstick or flamboyance. The two most incompetent ministers in ModiSarkar continue to retain their jobs and in one case a new ministry has been added as a reward for the incompetence – Amit Shah and Nirmal Sitharaman.

Amit Shah is easily the most incompetent and most dispensable of the ministers in the Cabinet. His performance is shameful and law and order in the country has gone to dogs under him. The only reason he survives is by hanging on to the kurta-tail of Modi otherwise Shah causes the most damage to ModiSarkar with his incompetence. The most pathetic of Shah’s conduct is eating with the ones he claims to stand with and then dumping them when they are under attack in Bengal. I hold him directly responsible for allowing the continuous murder of Hindus in Bengal (along with Modi). This man doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near power:

India also deserves a better Finance Minister instead of the clerical worker that Nirmala Sitharaman is. NS has neither the qualification nor the experience that could help her be a successful FM. While that could be overlooked at the start, time has proved her a miserable failure and she exists in the post only as a leftover junk of Arun Jaitley. Someone with a better understanding of finance and economy like Gadkari or Goyal would have been more suited to the role. But those two would obviously not wholeheartedly agree to the “Dole culture” of Modi and Modi also doesn’t want ministers who appear to be smarter than he is. Indian economy is not going to recover for quite a few years despite all the lipstick being applied. With these two non-performers still in place, the country’s overall atmosphere of gloom continues and there is no sense of well-being. Thus, the entire exercise of reshuffle is more a political mix of caste, numbers and whitewash than anything else.

Far from Modi’s grand idea of “New India” the whole economy is now a “Dole economy”. Both NS and Modi grandly claim they are feeding free rations to 80cr people. This only means that many people have been driven into poverty due to the Covid pandemic and Indian population doesn’t have the slightest resilience to a setback. This is in addition to Muslim and Sikh doles, farmer doles etc. With the size of our population, India will never get out of the evil of doles, appeasement and Reservation. The Cabinet reshuffle is nothing but a reflection of this dole and appeasement culture. Nehru still rules India in the body of Modi:

While one hopes the new ministers will create a good impact, there is no reason to believe they will be any different than the others. The problem is not so much the ministers but Modi’s agenda. The RSS talks nonsense and Modi executes it. When that agenda remains, the ministers can hardly bring any dramatic change. Lastly, the Bengal-battering has deeply impacted Modi and the BJP. Their top leaders have been stupidly stunned although they try hard to hide it and their Bhajan Mandli tries to cover up. Within 2 months of that battering, there is a Cabinet reshuffle. This is not driven by great goals but the fear of losing UP, Uttarakhand and Himachal. Thus, the whole exercise of Cabinet reshuffle is one of FEAR. Retaining incompetent ministers like Shah and Sitharaman explains that fear. The reshuffle may be big in size but it lacks in courage.

 

Follow the blog on Twitter / Follow on Koo.

Subscribe To EducatingForward / Buy The EF Handbook

Donate in INR / Donate in US$