From the time he took the oath of office of Prime Minister for the first time on May 26, 2014, Narendra Modi's 45-member Union council of ministers promised to break away from the patterns of governance adopted during the previous 25 years of coalitions. They believed it was their mandate to reshape the civilisational idea of India in a short time. To explain the seemingly frenetic pace of actions and decisions of the country's first non-Congress majority government since 1977, Arun Jaitley would frequently quote Otto Von Bismarck. "Politics is the art of the possible," he would say.
The subtext, under the veneer of cooperative federalism, was that an ideologically committed majority government will expand possibilities to accomplish its agenda. The BJP's majority in the Lok Sabha, the PM's popular appeal, and his sway within the BJP made it possible for the government to embrace a more determined decision-making. It exalted its muscular governance as the "new normal" and pilloried the preceding UPA coalition as wracked by "policy paralysis".
This 'art of the possible' meant Modi could maintain a lean council of ministers, merge key ministries, and run an all-powerful Prime Minister's Office to try to deliver "better days" through maximum governance, minimum government. Jumbo cabinets were for "weak" Manmohan Singh.
Moreover, technocrats, especially those with academic degrees from western universities, were to be avoided. The PM said hard work was more potent than a degree from Harvard. The Modi government scrapped the UPA era 'group of ministers' mechanisms, pushed through decisions, such as demonetisation, without consultations within the government and against expert advice. Critics of the government were brushed aside as the "Khan Market gang".
Even as the economy kept going down, none of this impeded the BJP's march to a second successive Lok Sabha majority in 2019. The mandate emboldened Modi 2.0 to deliver on the Sangh Parivar's core agenda of abrogating Article 370, constructing the Ram temple in Ayodhya, and enacting a law that began the country on the path of the Nuremberg Laws on citizenship.
However, developments since May 2 suggest a shift in politics that has followed a set pattern for the last seven years. That day, the Election Commission announced the results of the Assembly polls in four states and a Union Territory, including West Bengal. On July 7, the PM inducted 36 new ministers into the Union council of ministers. The composition of the council confirmed that the PM is awake to the challenges ahead.
After seven years at the helm, Modi’s newly reshuffled and expanded cabinet could be evidence that the BJP's top leaders have acknowledged that they need the art of political consensus, accommodation and the patience to heed criticism to run a country as diverse and heterogeneous as India.
It is a moot point whether this awareness could have happened without the sustained anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests, anti-farm laws agitation, electoral reverses in Bengal, and concerns about the polls in Uttar Pradesh.
The result is that at 77 members, Modi's council of ministers is now nearly as big as the ones that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and “weak” Manmohan Singh had headed. The government has shown it is alive to criticism, both on the economy and the mismanagement of the Covid-19 situation.
The Union health ministry stands revamped. Harsh Vardhan and Ashwini Kumar Choubey have taken the fall for decisions taken elsewhere. The integration of health and family welfare portfolio with chemicals and fertilizers and handing it over to a trusted Gujarati hand, Mansukh Mandaviya, is intriguing.
Modi has inducted bureaucrats, technocrats, defectors, and allies in another significant shift, while sacking Sangh Parivar veterans. It suggests a congruence in the objectives of the top RSS leadership and the PM in the run-up to crucial Assembly polls and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Modi has dropped several ministers with roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), like Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, DV Sadananda Gowda and Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank'. He has promoted to cabinet rank former bureaucrats Hardeep Puri and RK Singh, inducted technocrat Ashwini Vaishnav as a cabinet minister with the heavyweight portfolios of railways, communications, and electronics and IT.
Another former bureaucrat to join the Union cabinet is Janata Dal (United)'s RCP Singh. Defectors Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narayan Rane, both with experience in running ministries, have vital portfolios. Bhupendra Yadav, liked across party lines for his consensual approach, is now the country's labour and environment minister.
The north-eastern states have seldom received the representation that they have now in the Union cabinet. The north-eastern states now have five ministers, including cabinet rank ministers Kiren Rijiju and Sarbananda Sonowal. The BJP had performed creditably in the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the north-east and would hope to consolidate not only in the next Lok Sabha but retain power in Manipur and Tripura in the Assembly polls in these two states.
The increased representation to Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh has to do with the Assembly polls in these two states in 2022. From UP, Modi has inducted OBC and Dalit MPs and accommodated allies. A more intriguing plan is the better representation of Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal. Together these three states send 111 MPs to the Lok Sabha. The BJP and Shiv Sena fought Maharashtra's 48 Lok Sabha seats in an alliance. Now that Sena might not return to the NDA fold, the BJP is preparing to contest all 48 seats in the state.
In Odisha, it hopes to build on its surprisingly good show in 2019 since it believes the state would naturally fall into its lap once an ageing Naveen Patnaik retires from active politics. The four appointments from West Bengal will keep the party's morale up after the loss in the Assembly polls and signal to communities— the Matuas and tribals— to keep their faith with the BJP.
The revamped Modi cabinet still lacks adequate representation of India's most significant minority. However, if the government's intent to heed public opinion and learn lessons from its electoral defeats is not short-lived, who knows, someday even that might happen.
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