Narendra Modi loves disruption, and the Amit Shah-Jaishankar portfolios prove that

Prime Minister Narendra Modi after taking oath for the second consecutive term at Rashtrapati Bhawan | PTI

What’s common between Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he embarks on his second term and the multiple Grammy award-winning Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am, whose latest single, ‘Pretty Little Thing’, is busting the charts again?

In a podcast with Fergus Nicoll on the BBC’s Business Matters, will.i.am comes clean. “Disruption is (as old as) 2008… Moving forward, it’s about transformation. For big companies to survive tomorrow, they have to be transformative. They have to transform how and what they do,” he said.

Modi seems to have borrowed a leaf. Those two words, disruption and transformation, rang true at Narendra Modi and his ministers’ swearing-in ceremony in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan Thursday evening.

By bringing in party president Amit Shah, former foreign secretary S. Jaishankar as well as “aam aadmi” first-timer from Odisha Pratap Sarangi into his council of ministers, Modi demonstrated he was willing to buck the trend – disrupt things and hope to transform them – even when he was succeeding.

This is the moral of Modi’s story. Every time he thinks something is working, he isn’t willing to sit back and let it ride, just because the going is good. He wants to tinker with things at the risk of failure (bypoll losses last year in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana) and learn from them to create a new strategy for Uttar Pradesh.

He’s willing to take the risk of being laughed at (how he pushed the IAF to strike deep inside Pakistan at Balakot despite it being a cloudy night) and transform it into an “I am India, India is me” moment.

Modi knows that constant engagement is the answer. That a constant pushing of the envelope will definitely yield something better. The goal is to paint all of India in Hindutva colours and Amit Shah, now the home minister, must deliver.

A second goal is to make India into a strong and powerful country, which commands the respect of the international community. Nobody can argue with this truism, which is as old as the hills.

Modi is going one step ahead and saying that India must not only be respected, but also feared. But the iron hand must be cast in a velvet glove. That’s where S. Jaishankar comes in. The former foreign secretary has cut his teeth studying the wiles of the Chinese, the Russians and the Americans, and he is expected to continue doing the same in his new avatar as external affairs minister.

So, expect not just a disruption but a turnaround of sorts in this Modi government.

Pakistan comes to mind. Modi knows that if he has to be the emperor of all he surveys, he must address the Pakistan problem; so, a new beginning will be made on the margins of the Bishkek summit in mid-June, enough to keep the Pakistanis in check while the Modi gathers up the strength to challenge the Chinese.

As for the Chinese, Modi realises the real reason for the unequal relationship is that trade is heavily tilted in China’s favour. Fixing India-China ties on a sustained basis, beyond the usual China-Doklam-boundary-Dalai-Lama paradigm, means that domestic manufacturing and services need to be fixed. Which commerce and industries minister is up to that task?

Importantly, the Indo-US relationship needs urgent repair. Donald Trump and Modi have a terrible personal relationship. Within hours of the swearing-in, the Americans ended a preferential trade status for India, citing India’s lack of interest in opening up the economy.

Certainly, disruption requires a steely look at the process of breaking eggs, especially as the Modi-Shah duo are looking at the future. So, even though the BJP’s ally, the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar won as many as 16 seats, the party was offered one seat in the cabinet. Nitish Kumar said no; Modi-Shah shrugged their shoulders.

In contrast, assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana later this year means that MPs from these two states are being assiduously wooed. Haryana, with only 10 seats, has got as many as three ministers in Modi’s new council of ministers – Rao Inderjit Singh from Gurugram, Rattan Lal Kataria from Ambala and Krishan Pal Gurjar from Faridabad – while Maharashtra, with 48 seats, has got as many as six.

Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal (both BJP) and Ramdas Athawale (Republican Party of India) were already there in the first Modi government. In addition, Shiv Sena’s Arvind Sawant and BJP MPs Sanjay Dhotre and Raosaheb Danve have been sworn in.

Modi’s last word in disruption this week – actually, three words – are Pragya Singh Thakur. The terror-accused in the Malegaon blasts was asked to contest from Bhopal against Congress’ Digvijaya Singh, as if to prove the point that the Modi/RSS could put up anyone it wanted to as a candidate.

Now that she has been elected, Modi seems to have dumped her, at least for the time being. The ostensible reasons are her adulatory statements on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse and the man who gave up his life fighting Pakistani terrorists, Hemant Karkare.

The real message, make no mistake, is that Modi is showing he is the boss. Or as the popular Hindi film dialogue by the comedian, Ajit, goes, “Saara shehar mujhe lion ke naam se jaanta hai.” The whole city knows me because I’m a lion.

Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am would definitely agree.