June 15, 1998

The prime minister strives for presidential grandeur, but his official set-up is relatively lightweight, informal and prone to ad-hocism. It reflects the leader's hands-off approach.

By Saba Naqvi Bhaumik

May 11 wasn't merely a turning point for India's nuclear policy, it was also a turning point for Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It was the moment he decided to project himself as President Vajpayee. The Vajpayee that announced the Pokhran tests to a bewildered world wasn't quite the genial Atalji who has mesmerised crowds with his oratory for four decades. As the prime minister read haltingly from a prepared text, it was clear that the setting was different. The podium may not have been blessed with a crest of Ashokan lions, but the national flag was there, as were the two aides standing erect in the background. It was the swadeshi answer to press conferences on the White House lawns.

Unfortunately, that is where the analogy ends. It is one thing to project a regal style dripping with authority, a different matter to be able to carry it through consistently. As the dust settles on Pokhran and India gets back to business as usual, the picture of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) isn't entirely flattering. Leave aside an army of determined professionals setting the tone of governance for the world's sixth N-weapons state, the reality is of a laid-back, informal system of control. Vajpayee still remains a curious contradiction. On the one hand, he displayed the steely nerve to give the go-ahead to the nuclear tests, taking only Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra into confidence. Yet, the mundane reality is that Vajpayee is not working towards any grand scheme for India.

After three months in office, Vajpayee has emerged as a much more complex leader than expected. Like former US President Ronald Reagan -- another outstanding communicator -- he has the vision for grand strategy but lacks the patience for fine detail. He is in his element when addressing 50,000 people, but is reticent with five. He is a man who is easily bored.

That is why the court of Atal Bihari has a distinctly different ambience to the durbars of other prime ministers. There are hardly any hangers-on or groupies here. Those who fondly imagine they are close to Vajpayee find themselves out of favour the minute he hears of them acting in his name. Vajpayee's instinct is to run away from the "fixers" and "operators" who dot the political map, although the compulsions of a coalition government compel him to tolerate some. He will not wilfully create an R.K. Dhawan and an M.L. Fotedar. Those who have enjoyed a long innings with Vajpayee personally have invariably kept a dignified distance. More than any prime minister, with the possible exception of Indira Gandhi, Vajpayee is a natural loner.

Yet, there is a small circle on which Vajpayee leans heavily. Most mornings, after the prime minister has had a light breakfast of toast and fruit, his aides begin to gather round him at Race Course road. The first to arrive is usually the self-effacing Personal Secretary Shakti Sinha, an IAS officer, in his hallmark checked bush shirt. A low-key individual with an affable disposition, Sinha has been attached to Vajpayee since 1996. He is so much a part of the Vajpayee establishment that insiders joke that the nuclear tests were named after him.

The man who has willy nilly been thrust into managing the prime minister's affairs is related by marriage to the Kauls -- Vajpayee's adopted family. Though he does not have any decision-making powers, no file reaches the prime minister without going through Sinha. He also connects the PMO with the rest of the Government and Vajpayee often turns to him for guidance. He is sufficiently well versed in matters of government to provide instant inputs to the prime minister, particularly when Parliament is in session. Besides kinship, there is another area of commonality between Vajpayee and Sinha. The prime minister is a Hindi poet though he complains that politics and poetry do not mingle. Sinha, on the other hand, loves painting, although he is embarrassed to talk about it. He has even been part of an exhibition. Of course, it's a hobby for which he has little time now.

Joining Sinha at the morning pow-wow is Political Adviser Pramod Mahajan, who combines the roles of trouble-shooter, spin doctor and spokesman for the pmo. Once considered the shadow of Home Minister L.K. Advani -- he accompanied Advani during the controversial rath yatra in 1990 -- Mahajan has all along been a skilled practitioner of realpolitik, besides being an accomplished public speaker. Since Vajpayee moved into South Block, his skills have been exclusively at the service of the prime minister. Dealing with allies, listening to requests of MPs -- tasks for which Vajpayee has neither the time nor the inclination. Says one of the prime minister's aides: "Who else in the BJP could have done this job? Atalji is close to Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, but he is a chief minister, besides being too senior to walk behind him."

After a sluggish first month in office, when Vajpayee started getting a bad press, it was Mahajan who was given the task of handling public relations. His protege, Delhi MP Vijay Goel, was entrusted with the janata durbar and the public grievances cell, while Mahajan became a sort of super-spokesman of the government. But this over-exposure riled some partymen, besides raising the hackles of bureaucrats who consider the PMO their preserve. Mahajan has now become wary of stepping on bureaucratic toes -- his only interface with officials is through Sinha. Besides, Mahajan never attends cabinet meetings nor looks at Government files.

This problem may be resolved once Mahajan re-enters Parliament next week. He is likely to be made Minister for Parliamentary Affairs in the cabinet expansion that is expected in mid-June. "He can continue assisting the PM even as a minister," says a party veteran.

Mahajan has ambitions of reaching the very top of the BJP hierarchy. However, he seems to have made enemies of those who see him as blocking their access to Vajpayee, a charge also levelled at Sinha. Race Course Road insiders say the allegations are baseless. According to them, the prime minister decides on his appointments at the dining table. "People often accuse Pramod and Shakti of screening Vajpayee's visitors. But I've seen him go through the names himself at the dinner table and deciding whom not to meet," says an insider.

No such charges are levelled, even casually, against the third member of Vajpayee's inner circle -- the regal Major Jaswant Singh. A true officer and a gentleman, he is Vajpayee's key policy adviser on more subjects than his formal designation of deputy chairman, Planning Commission, would suggest. Singh's responsibilities are mounting. Besides playing Prince Charming to Jayalalitha and organiser of the coordination committee of the coalition, Singh is in virtually every task force set up by the prime minister, from defence to info-tech.

Singh is the only member of the inner circle whom Vajpayee lists as a personal friend. Besides a shared interest in defence and foreign affairs, there is also a curious commonality of styles. Himself a master of the Hindi language, Vajpayee is impressed with Singh's formidable command over and delivery of English. Hence, Singh is also utilised for his drafting skills; to try and lift a dull statement with some grand prose befitting an orator like Vajpayee. It is not unusual to sight Singh poring over a draft of the prime minister's speech and declaiming; "No, no, no, my dear. We'd better put that sentence quite differently ..."

The RSS' veto over Singh's appointment as finance minister and his exclusion from Kushabhau Thakre's BJP national executive have, ironically, only added to Vajpayee's determination to keep his friend in the forefront. Vajpayee insisted on Singh being given a Rajya Sabha ticket last week, overriding objections to "defeated" politicians being kept out. Says a cabinet minister: "Jaswant's role is far beyond handling financial matters as deputy chairman of the planning commission. Vajpayee has ensured that he becomes part of every aspect of government where his presence in any cabinet or Government meeting cannot be questioned." It helps that Singh, with his highly developed sense of correct behaviour, never steps on anyone's toes.

Equally unobtrusive is Brajesh Mishra, the former diplomat who was Vajpayee's surprise choice as principal secretary -- the formal head of the PMO. The son of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister D.P. Mishra, considered Indira Gandhi's Chanakya, Brajesh Mishra joined the BJP in 1991 and became the head of its foreign affairs cell. The quiet man, who has a reputation for being a hawk on China, has been catapulted into the limelight with the "big bomb". Since May 11, he has come into his own. Apart from assuming responsibility of personally briefing western leaders on India's nuclear policy, Mishra has become the most authoritative voice of Indian foreign policy. A far cry from the years in the BJP's Ashoka Road headquarters in Delhi where he would prepare routine statements outlining the party's defence strategy for the benefit of bored journalists.

During the debate on the nuclear issue for instance, while Vajpayee sat patiently in the Lok Sabha, Mishra could often be found closeted with Foreign secretary K. Raghunath and Singh, hammering out the finer points of the Government's stand.

Today, Mishra heads an establishment that includes one secretary and eight joint secretaries. It is still too early to predict whether a retired ifs man can extend his writ over the formidable IAS lobby. With the exception of P.N. Haksar who served under Indira Gandhi, most principal secretaries have been from the IAS with experience in economic ministries. Like the prime minister himself, Mishra's areas of interest are largely defence and foreign affairs. In fact, the last month has seen him function as a sort of super foreign minister and national security adviser rolled into one. Domestic concerns appear to have been relegated to the background. 

With both the prime minister and his principal secretary preoccupied with defence and foreign affairs, it is hardly surprising that this PMO is far less intrusive than the past. The reason is economics, an area that leaves Vajpayee cold. The PMO lacks technocrats and specialists of the calibre of, say Arjun Sengupta and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who served Indira and Rajiv respectively. As there are no signs of any being inducted, Vajpayee has consciously chosen to give an exceptional degree of autonomy to the relevant ministries. This is in sharp contrast to the PMO under Congress governments when economic decisions were regarded as extensions of politics. Except in the matter of mega-projects where the PMO interacts with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, routine clearances involving business are not vetted by the PMO. The only areas that excite Vajpayee are linked with the social sector and he plans to be associated with a major package on health and family welfare. Consequently, there are hardly any charges as yet of files being held up at the PMO. As in his personal life, Vajpayee appears to believe in the principle of live and let live. Laughs an insider: "Leave him alone and he'll leave you alone as well!"

This hands-off policy has its advantages, but there are a number of pitfalls. In his bid to institutionalise the principle of autonomy, Vajpayee has overlooked many of the distortions in his council of ministers. For example, a large number of ministers of state have not been assigned responsibilities and have been reduced to being decoration pieces. In Vajpayee's own Ministry of External Affairs, many important decisions are by default. None of the "political" ambassadors appointed in the last days of the Gujral regime has been recalled. Former foreign secretary Salman Haider continues to function as a lame-duck high commissioner in London, India's entry point to the European Union, with damaging consequences for Indian diplomacy. Other important decisions like the reconstitution of the boards of the Reserve Bank of India, nationalised banks and public-sector units have not yet been seriously addressed. The Vajpayee Government has not yet woken up to the full potential of patronage politics.

As of now, Vajpayee's PMO is still relatively lightweight and in the process of evolution. Consequently, its functioning is marred by a measure of ad-hocism. Take the matter of appointments to the PMO. Last week, Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS officer Ashok Priyadarshi was inducted into the PMO as an officer on special duty (OSD) with the rank of joint secretary. But Priyadarshi's duties are yet to be spelled out. In the case of the appointment of senior Press Trust of India journalist Ashok Tandon as an OSD on the recommendation of the BJP media cell, the left hand of the Government didn't know what the right hand was doing.

Initially, Tandon was tipped to head the Press Information Bureau. But this plan came to nought after the incumbent got an extension following the revision of retirement age for public servants from 58 to 60. Now, Tandon appears to be settling down to being a routine information officer with his responsibilities nebulously defined.

A real problem Vajpayee faces is his inability to directly say "no" and be discourteous. He is not naturally ruthless. Despite being a loner, he is also not naturally distrustful of people. In moments of extreme discomfiture, the prime minister is prone to closing his eyes and wishing the problem would disappear or leave him alone. In real life, this rarely happens, a reason why his family is concerned over his vulnerability.

This is where Ranjan Bhattacharya enters the picture. Married to Vajpayee's adopted daughter, Ranjan, an independent businessman, lives at 7 Race Course road with the prime minister. His interest in politics is incidental and stems from the family's anxiety to throw a protective shield around Baapji. To ensure that people do not take advantage of Vajpayee's essentially easy-going nature and to forge equations with the right people who can serve the prime minister with dedication and competence. This is a particularly pressing task considering Vajpayee's reclusiveness and his consequent reluctance to carve out a camp within the BJP.

However, it is a problem that the prime minister will have to confront squarely. For the moment he has crafted a small PMO based primarily on personal relationships. Such an approach has its obvious limitations. Despite wanting to be presidential, Vajpayee's establishment lacks the stamp of authority. It is too lightweight for comfort. If Vajpayee is to leave his decisive stamp on governance, he has to look beyond informality and ad-hocism. Indications are that the prime minister realises this and that he will turn to the catchment area that has served him loyally for the past four decades -- the party. The question is: will political loyalty suffice? Can it succeed in making the PMO mirror India's new-acquired global importance? The jury is still out.

Vajpayee's Court

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