At home

For a regime that  much promised to write a new chapter in good governance, the Modi government is turning out to be quite adept at writing marching orders for senior bureaucrats. It has abruptly and inexplicably effected a change at North Block. The incumbent Home Secretary LC Goyal has been asked to pack his bags unceremoniously.  To send home a Home Secretary within seven months was a clumsy exercise. Either a very poor judgment was made in picking up Goyal as Home Secretary seven months ago or an equally poor calculation has been made in telling him that he does not fit the bill as Home Secretary.  Though the new Home Secretary, Rajiv Mehrishi, is a fine officer, the change of guard at North Block nonetheless does advertise the senior political leadership's inaptness at the very core of governance structures.  

In the larger scheme of things called “Government of India”, the Union Home Secretary is deemed to be the most significant bureaucratic brief — much more than a Cabinet Secretary or Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. He/she provides the key leadership to the entire law and order architecture. When Goyal was brought in seven months ago, his earlier stint in the Union Home Ministry was widely cited and noted. Goyal’s departure suggests much more than ordinariness that has come to define the functioning of the Modi Sarkar. It has been suggested that Goyal paid a price for being what a good, honest and bright officer should be — fair and frank in his advice to the political leadership. 

It can be legitimately argued that a new government ought to have officers of its choice in key ministries like home, finance, defence and external affairs. Compatibility is a desirable virtue in a civil servant. But the Goyal episode perhaps suggests that the Modi government is incentivising  pliability and conformity over competence and calibre. The shoddy departure and induction of home secretaries is at odds with the all too often invocation of the “Team India” mantra. It smacks of a return of the old itch: committed bureaucracy.