Recent U-turns Mark the End of the Unilateralism Seen During Modi 1.0 and 2.0

The retreat on lateral entry to the central bureaucracy continues the new trend of U-turns by the Narendra Modi government.

This is the fourth setback for the Modi government: it had to backtrack on its proposal for the long-term capital gains tax in the 2024 Union Budget, refer the Waqf (Amendment) Bill to a select committee – the first such referral in 10 years – and withdraw the Draft Broadcast Bill.

Some political observers have seen the present turnaround on lateral entry as the result of the Opposition’s criticism, pressure from allies, or even civil society with the government wary of the issue becoming part of the Bharat Bandh protest on 21 August by Dalit organisations. Some think that the BJP is apprehensive of reservations becoming an electoral issue as the fear of changing the Constitution was seen as contributing to its downslide in the Lok Sabha polls.

The impact some of the proposed decisions may have on the voters in the election-going states of Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir in September-October, followed by Maharashtra and Jharkhand a month later in November, is also seen as a factor contributing to the government’s retreat.

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How much each of these factors has weighed in on the U-turns by the government depends on the political predilections of the observer.

Whatever their cause, the U-turns mark the end of the unilateralism that had become the hallmark of the previous two Modi regimes.

Buoyed by massive electoral victories, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Modi’s leadership had begun to think that the Opposition, especially the Congress party which seemed in precipitous decline, was entirely dispensable in its bid to reshape India’s political landscape, which explained the former's call for a “Congress mukt Bharat (Congress-free India)” and the complete lack of consultation with the Opposition on any policy or legislative issue.

However, Modi’s unilateral decision-making soon made inroads into the BJP itself. It is widely believed that the prime minister listened, with a few exceptions, only to Gujarat-origin politicians and Gujarat cadre officers of the Indian Administrative Service or the Police Service.

In the first Modi government, the only exception to this rule was perhaps the Late Arun Jaitley, who was the prime minister’s go-to adviser for navigating his way through the power corridors of Delhi and amongst those his party dubbed the “Lutyens gang”. Later, Jaitley was effectively marginalised in the Modi durbar by the ambitious Amit Shah who had the prime minister’s ear, first as party president and later as the Union home minister.

Such was the extent of the Modi regime’s centralisation of power and decision-making that apparently even for Cabinet meetings, the agenda was not circulated in advance. Individual ministers who were expected to lead an agenda item in the meeting would be given the relevant Cabinet papers barely half an hour in advance. The cabinet papers would then be collected back after the meeting in the name of maintaining secrecy.

Perhaps the ministers were there at all because Article 74(1) of the Indian Constitution of 1950 states that there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister as its head. But practically, they were redundant to decision-making in government.

A senior cabinet minister was given the agenda for the Cabinet Committee on Security just before the cabinet meeting and told that it must be returned after the meeting is believed to have returned it without opening the file. The minister, in the first Modi cabinet, apparently snapped, “Why not take them back just now? I don’t need them.”

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Unilateral decisions within the party by the Modi-Shah duo included the appointment of the new Rajasthan chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma who brought not even one day’s administrative experience to the table and Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini who has retained the personal staff of his predecessor and is believed to take most decisions on his advice.

This is the kind of brash unilateralism that the Modi dispensation is being forced to give up now, even if reluctantly.

It is a fact that Modi has no experience in running a coalition government or even consulting with NDA allies even though he ran his first two terms notionally as head of a coalition government. On the issue of lateral entry into the bureaucracy, the government ought to have consulted the Janata Dal (United), the Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJP) and others.

However, could KC Tyagi of the JD(U) or Modi’s self-professed ‘Hanuman’ Chirag Paswan of the LJP have come out against the government so stridently of their own accord simply because they represent parties whose vote bank consists of castes and classes that benefit from reservations? It is doubtful whether they have been willing to take on the Modi government if they knew they could not win.

It is quite possible that after the lateral entry programme was unilaterally announced, some within the BJP might have pointed out its likely adverse fallout.

Already, on the Supreme Court judgment giving states the freedom to keep the creamy layer among SC/STs out of reservations, the prime minister himself had to assure his party MPs that the government had no intention of implementing this proposal.

The match then could have been fixed with the allies being asked to raise the demand for the withdrawal of the policy and the government promptly conceding it.

After all, outside of Parliament, there was no major issue for Opposition mobilisation amongst the OBC and Dalits against the Modi government. On the creamy layer, some of the major opposition parties, especially the Congress party, had maintained a studied silence. Lateral entry to the bureaucracy going against the Constitutional provisions of reservations may, therefore, have been just the mobilisational issue the Opposition was looking for.

Paswan and Tyagi publicly criticising lateral entry to bureaucracy and then thanking the prime minister for conceding their demand would serve to keep the credit for policy reversal within the NDA fold. It would also allow the Modi government to present the ruling coalition as a consultative regime. However, even if this makes consultation just a shadow play, it still underlines how old dogs often have to learn new tricks by force of circumstance.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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