Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has caused a mini storm in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). On Wednesday, Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey became the fourth revenue secretary in four weeks. What would explain this game of musical chairs when Sitharaman must be giving finishing touches to her budgetary proposals?
Pandey replaced Arunish Chawla who was the revenue secretary for barely a fortnight. The two swapped their positions, with Chawla replacing Pandey as Secretary of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM). Before Chawla, economic affairs secretary Ajay Seth had held additional charge of revenue for about a fortnight. That was after Sanjay Malhotra, then-revenue secretary, was appointed as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor on 9 December.
Malhotra going to the RBI came as a surprise to many of his colleagues because Shaktikanta Das was expected to get an extension as the governor. Malhotra, a 1990–batch IAS officer, is junior to the Finance Secretary, Pandey, and also the Cabinet Secretary, TV Somanathan, by three years; they are of the 1987 batch. Having a junior officer at the helm of the country’s central bank makes life easier for North Block occupants. Shaktikanta Das is a 1980-batch officer. His appointment as RBI governor in 2018 had come as a big relief for his former colleagues in the North Block—especially after Raghuram Rajan’s and Urjit Patel’s tenures—but he didn’t exactly behave like the ‘government’s man’ when it came to cutting interest rates.
That aside, what do you think FM Sitharaman had in mind when she started this game of musical chairs in the revenue department? To be fair, it’s the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which takes these decisions. She would have a say, though, wouldn’t she?
Bureaucrats who know Arunish Chawla tell me that he was the right person for the revenue secretary’s job. A Master’s and Doctorate in Economics from the London School of Economics, the 1992-batch officer of the Bihar cadre had worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Senior Economist and served as joint secretary in the Department of Expenditure and secretary in the Department of Pharmaceuticals before being named the revenue secretary last year in December. “Revenue secretary’s role in Budget-making is crucial. Suppose you have to project tax buoyancy, which will keep everybody’s mood upbeat and optimistic. Then you must have a revenue secretary who agrees and plays along. I am not saying that’s the reason for these changes. She or the PMO was probably not getting the right person whose vibes matched theirs,” a former secretary in the Ministry of Finance told me.
Bureaucracy and loyalty
Could it be another instance of the government’s continuing quest for committed bureaucracy? Maybe, maybe not. Ask bureaucrats. It’s not easy to earn the political masters’ trust nowadays. You must show fierce loyalty to them, a serving secretary told me recently. He told me the story of a Rajasthan cadre IAS officer who had been repatriated to his home cadre “overnight”. He was in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and like any career bureaucrat followed his minister’s (Nitin Gadkari’s) instructions. The ‘powers that be’ saw it as a sign of loyalty to Gadkari and repatriated him. “It took us long to convince those powers that he had no political affiliation or personal agenda. It was pointed out to them that when he was additional chief secretary (home) in the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan, he had refused to sign on the dotted line in that infamous phone-tapping scandal. Thankfully, they (political masters in Delhi) saw reason and brought him back,” said the secretary.
Not many bureaucrats have friends with such persuasive skills, though. Ask Ashok Khemka, an officer of the Haryana cadre. He was seen as a crusader against corruption who was once a darling of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders for taking on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s husband, Robert Vadra, over his alleged land deals in Haryana. After Modi took over the reins in Delhi, Khemka was in the reckoning for deputation to the Prime Minister’s Office.
It never happened. The whistleblower IAS officer seems to have quietened now as he awaits his retirement a few months later. Another whistleblower, Sanjiv Chaturvedi of the Indian Forest Service (IFS), is, however, continuing his fight against the ‘system’—the latest being the issue of denial of his empanelment as a joint secretary at the Centre.
Chaturvedi is up against what started as the first move to ensure committed bureaucracy at the Centre—360-degree appraisal. It was introduced in 2015 by PK Mishra, then-additional principal secretary to the Prime Minister. Empanelment of officers for joint secretary and above at the Centre was earlier based on the review of their annual performance appraisal reports given by their superiors. The 360-degree appraisal system added another layer of evaluation whereby the concerned expert panel also speaks to officers’ peers, subordinates, and stakeholders to gather their feedback, a system that has come under severe criticism for being opaque and biased.
The lack of transparency has turned the 360-degree appraisal system into a tool to identify suitable officers on the basis of their political and ideological leanings. In May 2018, ex-BJP MP Subramanian Swamy had slammed this evaluation process, saying, “PM’s bureaucracy today keeps out honest officers from promotion by a sinister procedure called 360 Profiling. In this, merit is only a criterion. Important is the subjective pliability, a tool to keep out meritorious. I will write to PM for scrapping of this subversive method.”
Incidentally, when Sanjiv Chaturvedi approached the Central Administrative Tribunal seeking documents that formed the basis of his rejection for empanelment, the Modi government made a U-turn. As reported by my colleague Moushumi Das Gupta, the government completely denied the existence of the 360-degree system in 2023. In a written affidavit to the CAT on 9 October 2023, the government said that “no such system is there in the government of India.”
The government’s denial came as a shocker as it had earlier repeatedly defended the 360-degree system in the Rajya Sabha and before a parliamentary standing committee.
The government contradicting itself at different fora on the 360-degree system hasn’t had any bearing on its pursuit for a committed bureaucracy, though. It’s sine qua non for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governance style. It’s bureaucrats, not ministers, he relies upon to run the government—at the Centre and also in states where it’s needed.
For instance, as the chief minister of Gujarat, he had brought IAS officer K Kailashnathan to his CMO in 2006. After KK retired in 2013 and Modi shifted to Delhi, the bureaucrat virtually ran the state as Modi’s regent, serving as chief principal secretary to successive CMs.
After KK hung his boots last June, former revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia stepped in to take over that role as principal advisor to the CM. No wonder, PM Modi can do away with any chief minister with his entire council of ministers without it having a bearing on his politics and governance. Those close to him have been given the liberty to follow the same model. Union Minister and former Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, for instance, has got his former chief principal secretary, ex-IAS officer Rajesh Khullar, reinstated in the same capacity in Nayab Singh Saini’s CMO.
Also read: Why Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan is seeking political redemption through Sanatan Dharma
The quest for committed bureaucracy
Some ex-bureaucrats come in handy for Raj Bhavan postings in non-NDA-ruled states where the elected governments do not usually have a very potent political opposition—RN Ravi as Tamil Nadu Governor and CV Ananda Bose as West Bengal’s, for instance. PM Modi’s and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s trust in bureaucrats was evident once again when they appointed ex-IAS officer Ajay Kumar Bhalla as the Governor of Manipur. That was despite the fact that Bhalla was the Union home secretary until last August and must share the blame for the Centre’s failures in Manipur.
PM Modi evidently reposes more faith in serving and retired bureaucrats than in politicians. IAS officers must, however, be taking it with a pinch of salt. The quest for committed bureaucracy is now going beyond—or at the cost of—the IAS. As reported by my colleague Sanya Dhingra, only 33 per cent of the joint secretaries serving in the government of India—80 out of 236—today are from the IAS. And 33 per cent of the additional secretaries—37 out of 112—are not from the IAS. If this trend continues, IAS officers would soon become an endangered community in the corridors of power in New Delhi, at least.
So, who is PM Modi—the one using bureaucrats to fulfil his governance agenda or the one cutting at the very roots of the IAS’ powers? The first, the second or both? Let’s leave it to the IAS officers to figure it out.
Meanwhile, for all we know, Tuhin Kanta Pandey may be keeping an eye on the calendar. There are still over two weeks left for the next Union Budget.
DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
With such exceptional command and control, it is fair to expect much better outcomes in all domains of governance, starting with the economy. Not glittering on the eve of the Budget. The Defence Secretary presented a glum picture of the system of procurement of major weapons systems. So many reports of poor quality construction for prestigious national projects. Manipur is no closer to harmony than when the troubles started. Many challenges in foreign policy, radiating outwards from South Asia.