Modi-ji ban gaya family guy: Did babus just see the preview of a gentler PM?

“Why are you so serious?” Narendra Modi asked the bureaucrat babus at a Civil Services Day event at Vigyan Bhavan. Perhaps because they were looking at the prime minister and wondering nervously what he had in store for them. [caption id=“attachment_2207976” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Prime Minister Narendra Modi conferring the awards for Excellence in Public Administration on the Civil Services Day function, in New Delhi on 21 April 2015. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] India’s notoriously entitled babudom bore the first brunt of Modi sarkar’s acchey din. They were, one could say, the guinea pigs in Modi’s laboratory of change you could count on. Could the bureaucracy also be the place where the PM will launch a kinder, gentler avatar? The babus would certainly welcome it. In the early days of the Modi sarkar, the entire bureaucracy seemed to be in a perpetual state of nervous palpitation as they adjusted to like with a workaholic PM. “Officers cannot leave till the ministers are in office. Following in the footsteps of Modi, ministers have started calling babus late evening and even early morning to discuss issues,” a senior official told the Economic Times . They had to be ready with a “smart bullet point summary”, be prepared for quick “follow-up meetings” and make sure they don’t leave dirty tea cups on their desk. “I walk into my office at 9 am and have rarely left before 9 pm,” said a minister. And the babus around the minister have to be ready for meetings that begin at 9:30 am sharp. However in all this talk about long days at the office it’s worth remembering. Modi’s predecessor was also punctilious, ready for work by 7 am, not prone to vacationing and at 78 was putting in 18-hour days as well. Time spent in office does not always mean a government that works efficiently. But the idea of the PM who made surprise visits to bureaucrat offices went down well with the aam aadmi for who among us has not had to deal with the frustration of knocking on the doors of arrogant MIA babus? And there was such a spate of stories about the workaholic PM, Quartz even collated and classified them. The prevailing wisdom seemed to have been spare the rod and spoil the babu. So it’s undoubtedly a surprise that the same PM is singing a very different tune to the bureaucrats. Now he is advising them not to become “robots” because a “life full of tension cannot achieve anything.” Never mind that the primary source of tension for nervous babus is …. But the PM has told them to think about spending “quality time” with their families though he admits that he cannot give them much personal guidance in this regard given his own lack of familial ties. In a country where the ma-bete sarkar had become a term of abuse and damad, the epitome of arrogant entitlement, and Modi made his lack of familial attachment a major asset in his campaign, family values is staging a comeback. The PM must be realizing that unlike him, everyone else cannot get by with three hours of sleep every night. And while he can put the fear of God into babus ultimately he needs them by his side because as he himself admits they have “to run the nation.” And as far as running the nation goes, it must rankle that some of those who had welcomed the BJP after the UPA doldrums were getting restive. The Economic Times reported that at a closed-door CII confab in December some prominent voices of India Inc were asking if the “government is doing enough to jumpstart growth, unlock infrastructure and spur fresh investments.” “The government has moved us from despair to hope but now I think that hope is waning,” said GVK Power & Infrastructure cice chairman Sanjay Reddy according to people present at the meeting even though Bharti Group’s Sunil Mittal counseled patience. Industry leader Deepak Parekh has said “optimism” is still there but he does not see “ease of doing business changing so far.” It’s not that there is no change but as an editorial in The Diplomat says “Despite a number of important initiatives, a perception has been gaining ground that there is no broader vision behind government policies; that everything is random. The Modi government has not yet made an all-encompassing argument – so its various policies don’t add up to more than the sum of their parts." That has led to columnists like TCA Srinivasa-Raghavan to opine in the Business Standard “Already the electorate is convinced that the Modi and Singh governments are just “Prem Singh-Nattha Singh, one and same thing”. The bureaucrats were supposed to be Modi’s stormtroopers. Empowered bureaucrats were always touted as the key success story of the Gujarat model. There were anecdotes galore about bureaucrats who went for a ride with Modi, had a conversation and when they came back found that he had cleared the path for implementation of some project he had discussed. Modi’s great asset was that he listened to their ideas instead of merely trying to show them who was boss. But there was a price tag for all of that according to The Telegraph ’s Radhika Ramaseshan. Modi’s former ministers in Gujarat apparently periodically checked themselves for high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes. “By the time Narendrabhai left (Gujarat), practically every one of us had one or more of these problems,” a Gujarat minister told The Telegraph. No wonder suddenly a Central posting is not looking so attractive to some babus around the country. Mihir Srivastava writes in Outlook that with vacancies at director and joint director crossing 80, “a hyperactive PMO seems to have put off a section of bureaucrats, who are now reluctant to leave states and move to the Centre in a reversal of the earlier trend of bureaucrats lobbying for central deputation.” Perhaps this latest speech was PM Modi’s realization that India is not Gujarat and to enthuse his babus he will need not just a stick but also a carrot. As any viewer of Yes Minister could have told him in the end without the babus on your side, your engine will start stalling. Hacker: If there were a conflict of interests which side would the civil service really be on? Bernard: The winning side, prime minister.