When a pro-regime writer recently suggested a reshuffle of the Modi Cabinet, to reattune the administration to reality, it provoked much social media attention. The writer called the Union Cabinet “jaded” and asked for removal of its “deadwood”. The Modi Cabinet, he wrote, needed “new faces and new ideas”. The columnist carefully avoided naming names, but it was apparent whom he meant. The mainstream media reported the buzz, but called it part of a wider plan to tone up the administration and party organisation in states. Nevertheless, eventually, the ruling duo found it safer not to disturb the incumbent ministers.During the good old days, it was customary for us journalists to file occasional ‘reshuffle stories’ – about the to and fro of both ministers and bureaucrats. We scrutinised their performance and named the inefficient and unpopular ones. We pinpointed the disrepute brought by the deadwood and often hinted at which minister or bureucrat would soon get sacked and who was tipped to get important portfolios or ministries. Such honest inputs helped prime ministers make up their mind. In those days, no one from the PMO called up the editor or castigated the correspondent. Department secretaries were not so servile as they now are. They maintained a certain degree of dignity and fair-play, even when the media conjectured about secretaries and ministries. All this is unthinkable for journalists today, who are so used to Modi’s authoritarian blueprint.Illustration: Pariplab ChakrabortyConsider the scenario. Every decision of this government is credited to Modi: he conceives them and implements in his own name. He inaugurates every project and takes upon himself the responsibility to attend every review meeting. All of these the media duly highlights. So how can the prime minister, all of a sudden, put all the blame for mistakes of omission or commission on the minister or officials? Clearly, Modi-Shah are trapped in their own authoritarian chakravyuh. This explains why they developed cold feet on a Cabinet recast even though a thorough shakeup is badly needed. Can the prime minister really sack his trusted follower Dharmendra Pradhan, even though he has repeatedly messed up the examination system, after having sent him to manage polls in states like Haryana? One wonders. In the Union finance ministry, everything is done in the prime minister’s name and on his behalf. He is personally informed of important decisions. He hails every budget as soon it is presented. Can he then get away with putting all the blame for the economic muddle India is in on finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman? Who owns responsibility?In fact, the whole ministerial mess could be traced back to Modi’s cult-centric personalised mismanagement system. Systemic degeneration is endemic to administrations led by spin-dictators. That is how it has been in most countries controlled by the 21st century’s new tribe of narrative spinners. Apart from this, India is in a curious situation where Union Home Minister Amit Shah can capture state after state through a combination of stealth, central agencies and forces, and the Election Commission and Enforcement Directorate. But he finds it extremely difficult to retain captured states – at least, not by providing people with administrative and developmental programmes that work efficiently. And the resultant credibility gap has been widening. Add to this the steep decline of the “Modi magic” and the diminishing returns from the schemes and projects his regime rejigged. There was a time in Modi’s prime-ministership when PMO aides would simply tick-mark budget allocations, give existing schemes a Sanskritised name and launch them as Modi’s flagship ideas. Now the graveyard is filling with such failed schemes. They give no more political dividends. A recent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report flags significant gaps in the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, noting that only 41% of the candidates could secure employment after training and certification. CAG cited a large number of failures in implementation and said “crores” were wasted on science and environment programmes, for example. Or look at the Modi regime’s panic reaction to the economic crisis caused by the US-Israel attack on Iran. This war was not a sudden development. While most countries were making preparations to meet the consequences of the conflict before it began, the Modi regime kept boasting about the Indian economy’s “intrinsic resilience”. Then early this month came the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) panicked effort to ward off economic disasters. The remedies it suggested included raising NRI investment rates to bring back money to India. The RBI had, last December, announced measures to inject Rs 290 lakh crore liquidity into the system. The next day, the prime minister called an urgent meeting of his economic advisory committee to seek expert views on how to face the looming economic crisis portended by the war.Then came a Union Cabinet meeting which decided to issue an ordinance easing tax rules for foreign investors. This was expected to attract foreign investment. It decided to create a Rs 10,000 crore fund to help airlines absorb the aftershocks of the aviation fuel hike that followed the war. Another Rs 9,585 crore fund will be created to help truckers swap old trucks with BS-VI complaint ones! Constant precarity from over-centralising New DelhiBut things remain precarious. We have missed the deadline for the $5 trillion economy dream. The rupee is chasing the 100-to-a-dollar mark. NSDL data shows foreign portfolio investment in the equity market have fallen to a ten-year low. This indicates sustained overseas selling and a gradual decline in global investor exposure to Indian listed companies. Net foreign inflows have dropped to their weakest point since 2016, while foreign ownership in Indian equities has also declined sharply over the past decade. All this puts paid to whatever the government did to improve capital market attractiveness. When in 2021 Shah handpicked unproven non-entities like Bhupendra Patel as chief ministers, The Wire was among the first to warn of the perils. Still, every political appointment in BJP has followed this pattern.The chief ministers Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Goa were fixed based on factors like personal loyalty rather than competence, experience, seniority, legislative majority or popular image. After years in power, these appointed chief ministers are not performing, despite micromanagement by Shah. The sudden expansion of Shah’s responsibilities to other areas has taken him away from the spoon feeding role. The vacuum has left the chief ministers to organise things for themselves, which they are unused to doing. Those like Delhi’s Rekha Gupta are especially vulnerable to manipulation by pressure groups within and outside the party. Union Home Minister Amit Shah with chief ministers of BJP-ruled states and the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh. Photos: PTI.Let us, for a moment, ignore the many jokes circulating in BJP circles about Delhi’s Chief Minister. Let us confine ourselves to her own remarks made in public. At a recent party workers’ meeting, she attributed the national capital’s summer water crisis to a “hot sun” “evaporating water”. In December last year, she said, “AQI is a temperature which could be measured by any instrument.”None of the BJP state governments, including the one under the hyperactive Himanta Biswa Sarma, is functioning at par. The chief ministers, who spend most of their time politicking, are so used to routinely following directives from Delhi that they have become incapable. As a result, Shah now faces a different kind of ‘infiltration’ in states, which the SIR or “detection and deportation” cannot tackle. Long years in power have made BJP administrations vulnerable to “capture” by power brokers, lobbyists and contractors, big and petty alike. Decay is setting into the system.It’s getting slippery in power corridorsPersuasive, glib-talking brokers move along the corridors of power with nicely packaged project proposals, start-up ideas and software solutions for every situation that may arise in governance. Then there are contract-seekers, each flaunting a shakha background or close contact with Hedgewar Bhawan in Nagpur or Keshav Kunj in Delhi. Some claim Gujarat connections. The name-dropping has unnerved state BJP leaders, who have, over the past decade, functioned under a highly centralised system in which obeying higher-ups without asking questions is the norm. In BJP-ruled states, especially those like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, flaunting of ‘connections’ by those commit crimes, even those being corralled for traffic offences and accidents, has become a problem for the police. The accused try to intimidate police by name dropping and claiming kinship with BJP leaders. A Lamborghini belonging to a business friend of a BJP leader was crushed in an accident in Uttar Pradesh. “Why didn’t the chief minister send a bulldozer to punish the guilty?” asked Samajwadi Party leader and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, a tongue-in-cheek query that nevertheless got no response. In many cases, sons and daughters of those connected with the ruling party have claimed special privileges. The BJP’s image is slowly tarnishing in people’s perception.In an age of fractured mandates, personality cults and transactional alliances, P. Raman brings clarity to India’s shifting political equations. With Realpolitik, the veteran journalist peers beneath the slogans and spin to reveal the power plays, spectacle, crises and insecurities driving India’s politics.