by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
From Lodhi garden
to Modi garden
Four weeks is no time for a new-born baby to make any
sound other than crying. But Narendra Modi's government, which turns all of
four weeks today, is pristine in its silence. Where is the torrent of pious
intentions that gushes from the winning side after every election? Where is the
procession of celebratory parties thrown by the victors' "well
wishers" at the five-star hotels, with an army of fixers in tow?
If
premises of top UPA leaders give a deserted look, there is no beeline of
visitors outside the ministers houses either. The post-election bashes are
nowhere in sight. The media too is driven to despondency, with no mantri
holding mega press meets about his 'grand plan'. The Babus at Delhi's Gold Club and Gymkhana are a rare
bird these days and dossiers of Intelligence Bureau are taken more seriously by
the PMO. The speed with which Nripendra Mishra, Modi's principal secretary and
Cabinet Secretariat are issuing one circular after the other, making the life
miserable of all those who had made Delhi their nest for decades. More
importantly, what has suddenly gone off the air is the well-known voice of
Modi, brassy and laden with acid barbs, which filled the air waves for the
three months of campaigning. The PM's website has hardly any information, not even
telephone numbers. In Lutyen's Delhi,
the pall of silence is deafening.
It looks like that the 'power shift' in Delhi has also brought about a culture shift,
and neither the government nor the ruling party is any longer the beehive from
which the honey of news and views would drip from all corners. Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley is known for his gregarious ways, with his day beginning with a
morning walk in the city's Lodhi
Garden amid conversation
with friends about everything, from cricket to politics. There is hardly any
trace of Jaitley at the garden nowadays, with fellow walkers remarking in jest
that he may have shifted to "Modi garden". It is customary for the
Finance Minister, though, to avoid unscheduled public audiences in the pre-budget
weeks. On the other hand, Rajnath Singh, the irrepressible Home Minister,
created problems when he spoke out of turn to announce that the Centre's
communications to the states would be in Hindi and English, with
"priority" to Hindi. It attracted sharp backlashes from the
92-year-old M. Karunanidhi, and Modi had to work overtime to douse the fire.
Rajnath Singh's handling of ousting Governors left much to be desired. Singh
who loved to meet the press, has gone silent too. The fourth member of the
high-powered BJP core committee, Nitin Gadkari, is perhaps the only one who is
doing some talking. Now that the Nagpur
will be alternate Capital of India, Gadkari has bigger role to play. But most
of the ministers are following the Modi dharma in letter and spirit.
In four weeks flat,
Culture of Lutyen's
Delhi has changed
But silence alone is not the guarantee of a government's
efficiency. The first hint that the zero-decibel government of Modi is, in
reality, deeply worried over climate change and its consequent effect on the
monsoon pattern is an official communication that the height of Narmada dam
would be raised by 17 meters, a long-standing demand of the four beneficiary
states—Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. All previous regimes
attempted to do the same thing but were petrified at the thought of virulent
backlash by professional protesters like Greenpeace, the US-based NGO, and
Medha Patkar's Narmada Bachao movement. But the Modi administration showed more
pluck as it almost fortuitously got armed with an IB report that pointed at
"foreign funded NGOs" using mass protest as a weapon to retard the
country's economic growth. In the general drought of news, the well times leak
of the 'IB report' had a stunning effect on the anti-dam NGOs who'd have
otherwise taken no more than a day or two to take to the streets. India's Hydro
power sector can now look for a re-birth after a gap of 25 years.
A senior bureaucrat says on condition of anonymity that
Prime Minister Modi has "hermetically sealed" his administration from
"all sorts of busybodies", and that category unfortunately seems to
include journalists. It may be a deviation from the transparency expected in a
democracy but it is also a novelty in the context of the new work culture it has
brought into the government. All ministers are slogging 14 to 16 hours a day
and the Prime Minister putting in 18 hours without a break. For all top guns,
including the secretaries, foreign junkets are forbidden, and so are such
excesses as holding conferences in glitzy hotels instead of the office
conference hall. And the entire government is at work with two red letter dates
ahead: July 11, the day that the NDA government's first budget is presented;
and September 3, when it completes its first 100 days. The new government's
honeymoon phase is still on, but these two days are when people may start
asking questions. When that happens, the Prime Minister must break his silence
and have some real things to say. Like how is he planning to contain the
inflation, and what is the future of job growth or infrastructure.
From the early
signals, it appears that Modi is giving a more serious thought to inflation
control than that of merely a crackdown on hoarders to solve the problem. The
Prime Minister is looking beyond the IPC. He has sent his envoys to the
capitals of various non-BJP states for their compliance with a model
Agriculture Prices Marketing Committee law enabling farmers to sell their
produce directly to the retailer. It’s a long shot indeed. He has given the
first bitter pill by hiking rail fares and freight charges a fortnight before
the presentation of the Rail Budget. He also has to deal with the highly
inflationary issue of gas price hike pushed under the carpet by the UPA and
consequently the fertilizers price hike too. All eyes are on the coming budget
for the government’s strategy to bring down prices and create new jobs at the
same time.
Modi is an outsider to Lutyen’s Delhi, being an alien to its culture of
seeming outwardly smart and polished but being casual about work. Moreover, it
is used to having too many power centers. In four weeks flat, all that is
history. The government is accountable to Modi. And, unlike his predecessor,
Modi is accountable to no party leader but to the people of India. Period.
(The author is
National Editor of
Lokmat group)
