Anil Tyagi | Modi’s Twin Queens In The World Power Game

It is a unique game. There are only white pieces on the 8x8 board. There is, of course, a King, who stands taller than anyone else. But there are two Queens, each one limited to move only on either white or black squares. Sometimes, they decide to change the rules midway — the Queen on black decides to move on white, and vice-versa. The game is being played in New Delhi but the ramifications of each move engage powerful people across the globe. There is no doubt that NSA Ajit Doval and MEA’s S. Jaishankar are King Narendra Modi’s most consequential Queens.

Mr Jaishankar, the external affairs minister, has rooks, bishops, and knights spread across Washington, Moscow, EU, and the Middle East. Of course, there are thousands of pawns, more than the usual eight in a normal chess game. This Queen has influential global admirers — the US secretary of state Marco Rubio openly appreciates him, and the US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor maintains daily contact. While Mr Jaishankar operates on the white side of the geopolitical board, Mr Doval, the national security adviser, specialises in the dark arts, and lurks in the shadows. His covert networks are invaluable, and networks with global intelligence and security agencies were built over decades. Information, contacts and institutional memories are his real operatives on the chessboard.

Mr Jaishankar is Mr Modi’s global face, the diplomatic Queen. Mr Doval is his operational Queen. While one negotiates, the other anticipates. While one speaks for India, the other knows what India needs to do before it speaks. One is a dovish hawk, the other a straightforward hawk. Mr Modi cannot afford to sacrifice either. He guards them with gentle, but firm, hands. Both are crucial as in the new global order where no nation is powerful enough, India manages the interests of Russia, America, China, Brics, and other multilateral fora. But then unexpected situations require an inevitable sacrifice. A Cabinet reshuffle is around the corner. The game, as they say, is afoot.

Satheesan’s Keralam: A CM out of aspirant’s shadow

On May 18 this year, when UDF’s V.D. Satheesan became Keralam’s chief minister, he had to tackle the K.C. Venugopal factor. The latter was a strong contender for the post, a powerful general secretary in Congress’ central leadership, with proximity to Rahul Gandhi. But Mr Satheesan got the green light from the Congress Legislature Party. More than 100 days later, the CM has sent a strong message through the bureaucratic changes. He intends to run the state on his terms. He retained crucial portfolios such as finance, planning, general administration, and personnel and administrative reforms. Initiatives like digital monitoring, PlanSpace 2.0, asset tracking, and tighter accountability aim to make the state civil servants directly answerable to the political master.

At the heart of the chief minister’s office is Rathan U. Kelkar, IAS, secretary to the CM, who is backed by T. Sreekumar, special private secretary, whose experience in the secretariat gives the CMO institutional muscle. The communications team includes media secretary Roy Mathews, press secretary Seeji Kadakkal, and additional private secretaries Thilakan K.P.K. and Mohanachandran M.S. The bureaucratic reset happened with Bishwanath Sinha as chief secretary, and other senior officers in key positions in Home, finance, health and local government. The emerging administrative structure has Mr Satheesan’s imprint, not Mr Venugopal’s. The signals from Thiruvananthapuram are unmistakable: Mr Satheesan sits on the CM’s chair, surrounded by people that he desires and wants.

Missing bureaucrats in the Capital

In the modern version, this story begins in 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan, “Reform, Perform, Transform”, energised the nation, and impacted the country’s executive. The Central department of personnel and training (DoPT), the coordinating agency for civil servants, was given the mandate to unshackle the old system, and inculcate a 360-degree evaluation, and tighter scrutiny for central postings. Instead of myriad push-and-pull factors, the selected few mandarins in New Delhi would decide who was good enough for the top jobs. Admirable as it was, the process created immense uncertainty. This intensified when a few “Super-A” category officers were denied Central deputation, and the selection criteria, despite the so-called transparency, remained opaque. Civil servants, who sometimes believe that they wield the real power, responded secretly and strategically, not openly.

Increasingly, officers stuck to their states, and showed little inclination to move to the Capital. They realised that in their respective state cadres, they, as senior IAS and IPS officers, would be the queen bees, with unlimited political access, and enormous authority. In contrast, New Delhi offered DoPT’s and other forms of intense scrutiny, cutthroat and often murderous competition, and curtailed fiefdoms. Suddenly, the numbers exposed the human realities and DoPT’s frailty. At the Centre, of the 1,451 sanctioned central posts, only 419, or just 29 per cent, are occupied through Central Deputations from the states. Of the nationwide sanctioned IAS posts of 6,877, nearly 1,300 are vacant, an 18.9 per cent shortage. The deficiencies in some of the states is dismal — 43.6 per cent deficit in Nagaland, 32 per cent in Kerala, and 30.4 per cent in Manipur.

Alarmed as it is by the glaring Central shortfalls, DoPT has written to CMs and chief secretaries to immediately relieve empanelled state officers for Central deputations. The game, as they say, went hopefully wrong.

The writer is a senior journalist and alumnus of the Delhi School of Economics. He is the editor of gfiles, India’s first magazine on civil services and governance @AnilTyagilive