Why the NDA government cannot be a one-man show

A government for 1.25 billion people cannot be run by Narendra Modi alone. Collective decision-making is a must for good governance, says Virendra Kapoor.

It is early days yet. Less than five months in the life of a new government elected for a full five-year term can hardly justify a considered judgement on its performance. Besides, Narendra Modi is not only new to the prime minister’s office but he is also new to the capital’s labyrinthine political-bureaucratic establishment. Modi deserves time and understanding before a verdict can be passed on his prime ministership.

Yet, even in the brief while he has been in the saddle in New Delhi, one clear trend may be already discernible. And, we are afraid, unless corrective steps are taken early, Modi may rue the outcome. In one word, it is his tendency to play it solo. We have said it before and we have no hesitation in saying it again, that all politics is a group activity. However strong and popular the team leader, and Modi, it must be acknowledged, is both at the moment, he still requires a large number of people to manage the ship of State.

To take that analogy further, the larger the ship, the grander the ship, the larger the number of crew required on board -- and a good back-up team on the ground as well -- to ensure smooth sailing. The captain cannot concentrate all control in his own hands and expect that everything will run smoothly. He will have to necessarily delegate to trusted colleagues and allow them a say in the decision-making process. Otherwise, the ship will hit a huge rock and damage itself and, with it, the passengers and crew on board.

But, sorry to say, Modi seems happy keeping his ministerial team to the barest minimum and keeping it largely denuded of real authority. Both administratively and politically it does not make sense. While it is easy to understand the negatives flowing from a legion of thwarted ambitions within his own alliance, the real danger lies in under-providing for the leadership of the huge number of ministries and departments.

Without competent ministers who feel empowered enough to frame policies and take initiatives in their specific spheres, Modi will find it hard to manage the country with all its myriad problems and challenges all by himself. Criticism that he relies on a couple of his aides in the PMO rather than on his ministers needs to be nullified by offering empirical evidence that he is not a control freak.

He may rightly have an innate trust in his own capabilities. He may well be a superman among ordinary politicians but, we are afraid, without sharing power with his party men, without allowing them to provide independent inputs into the decision-making process, there is every danger of the government developing a tunnel vision. As they say, the buck must always stop at the prime minister’s desk, but before it does it ought to have travelled a couple of desks below. The nearly 40 lakh-strong payroll with an additional 50 lakh in the central public sector undertakings cannot be led by the PMO alone.

To put it bluntly, the PM cannot be the one and only leader in government. He would gain immensely if he were to consciously become the foremost leader in a cabinet full of other leaders as well. Collective leadership, with the prime minister at the helm, will broad-base decision-making and help end the growing centralisation of power in the PMO. As things are, faceless officials in the PMO have a greater role in the decision-making than some of the senior ministers.

Modi may not feel obliged to honour a large number of IOUs that he issued while graduating from CM to PM, but because it is human nature to expect a share in the pie, especially when one claims a role in its making, sooner than later his own version of ‘ekla chalo rey’ act might begin to recoil on him.

And even if he does well as PM, which at least we are certain he will, it would be hard to prevent the usual anti-incumbency from setting in. And when it does, he will find himself friendless because at the peak of his popularity he chose to concentrate all power in his hands.

He may well have survived as the ‘only man’ in the Gujarat cabinet. In Delhi, he needs to surround himself with well-meaning and intelligent men and women who will further bolster his strength and help provide purposeful governance to fulfill the peoples’ huge expectations. Being distrustful of colleagues and supporters can only cause them to be alienated. He should avoid that sad denouement to his excellent political journey thus far.