Decline of the Cabinet system

By Anil Nauriya [When the Cabinet system loses its sanctity, any coterie, political or non-political, can supersede it. This has implications for economic policy as well.] ALL HAS not been well with the Cabinet system of Government since the death of Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1964. The Indian public has got so used to the deterioration in the system that it sees nothing amiss in what has happened since. Indeed, it seldom recognises this as a key problem. However, we now have irrefutable and authoritative proof of at least one malaise. The proof has been provided unwittingly because the high dignitary who has provided it himself seems hardly conscious of the full significance either of what he has written or of the insight he has unintentionally given us. The position he held is such that the facts that emerge from what he has said must now be taken as admitted. The dignitary in question is P. C. Alexander, who served as Principal Secretary to Indira Gandhi. During her tenure as Prime Minister there were five persons who held office as Secretary to the Prime Minister at one time or another. Of these only two were designated as Principal Secretary. First, P. N. Haksar and subsequently, during Indira Gandhi's second tenure, Dr. Alexander. In an article in The Asian Age on December 10, 2002, Dr. Alexander writes: "The Prime Minister cannot always be expected to go through every document relevant to a decision or to discuss issues individually with the concerned ministers from whom the proposals for decision would have emanated. It is the duty of the PM's secretary to examine all important proposals on which the Prime Minister is to give his decision and present either through brief notes on the file or personal discussions the different options for consideration and recommend a definite line of action for the Prime Minister's final orders." It is understandable that the Secretary or Principal Secretary should help the Prime Minister in administration. It is also true that the Prime Minister cannot be expected to read "every document relevant to a decision". But the proposition that the Prime Minister cannot be expected "to discuss issues individually with the concerned ministers" lies at the heart of what has gone wrong in the post-Nehru era and particularly since the Congress split in 1969. If a Minister is unable to discuss an issue of concern to his Ministry individually with the Prime Minister, such a Minister is perhaps not worth his salt. It is difficult then to understand why the Prime Minister should be Prime Minister in the first place and why the Minister ought to be a Minister. This also means that a third person, usually a bureaucrat, has interposed himself in the relationship between the Minister and the Prime Minister. The Minister is in effect being made to report to a bureaucrat. It is improper for such a Minister to remain a Minister. To call a spade a spade, this is subversion of the Cabinet system from within. Such Ministers are Ministers only in name. Their true position approximates to that of part-time Advisers or Assistants in the Prime Minister's Secretariat or entourage. By June 1975 much of the Union Cabinet fell in this category. In fact, such Ministers are remiss also in their responsibility to Parliament.

It is significant that Dr. Alexander refers repeatedly to the Prime minister's "decision" and "final orders". This seems to leave little space for the Cabinet. This phenomenon is precisely what was reflected in the events of June 1975. The decision to impose Emergency was taken first, Cabinet ratification came later. When the Cabinet system loses its sanctity, any coterie, political or non-political, can supersede it. This has implications for economic policy as well. Dr. Alexander's article, and the casual and taken-for-granted reference to the Prime Minister being unable to have individual discussions with his Ministers means that this unavailability has settled into an acceptable practice. It means also that there was substantial basis for the stories that used to circulate in the 1970s about Ministers being made to wait upon bureaucrats in the Prime Minister's Secretariat. The contrast with the days of Jawaharlal Nehru is patent. There was no question of a Minister or an MP not being able to have access to him. There were reports in his time about M.O. Mathai, a relatively junior functionary, who tried to throw his weight about. Before long, Mathai was put in his place, by Nehru and by Nehru's Ministers. Dr. Alexander has revealed that one of his tasks during his tenure was to deal with "complaints from junior ministers that their seniors were not giving them adequate share of work in the ministry". It is inconceivable that such a task could have been handled by a bureaucrat in the Nehru era. It is extraordinary that a complaint by Minister J about Minister S should be taken for resolution ("dealing with") to a civil servant! Presumably therefore civil servants, or some of them, have been placed in a position to think, speak and act in such terms. The system delineated by Dr. Alexander now has certain additional features with which he is perhaps not sufficiently au fait. This involves the growth of the Deputy Prime Minister's Secretariat or Office. It is known that the new Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) is keen on expanding his own role in government, or, as he put it soon after being designated DPM, to formalise his existing role. What this implies for Cabinet Government remains to be seen. One result not difficult to foresee is the growth of factions in the Cabinet. Ministers would perhaps have to choose whether to wait upon a bureaucrat in the Prime Minister's Office or to wait upon a flunkey in the Deputy Prime Minister's Office. Pressure needs to be generated in Parliament to check the decline of the Cabinet system of government. To start with, all bureaucrats and senior functionaries in the PMO and in the Deputy Prime Minister's office should be brought under parliamentary scrutiny and be subject to some equivalent of confirmation hearings. A bureaucrat who has Ministers reporting to him and considers this normal should be prepared to accept at least this restraint upon himself. The Cabinet system had its checks and balances. If that system has evolved over the years into another variant or system, fresh checks and balances need to be devised. Dr. Alexander admits that there are "no office orders, rules of business or guidelines" about the duties of a Secretary to the Prime Minister. Obviously, this is also the position with the staff of the newly designated Deputy Prime Minister. A Minister needs to be designated as being answerable in Parliament for all such senior appointments. Such appointees should be expected to report to him and only through him be designated to serve the Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. This is particularly important also in the context of the nuclear factor which has now entered the subcontinental calculus. The people cannot afford to have any person,

politician, bureaucrat or another who, while operating in a centre of power, is above the levers of democratic control and instead has such levers reporting to him. Interestingly, the decline in the Cabinet system has not been significantly offset by the increased incidence of coalition governments. Coalition governments could have been expected to strengthen the Cabinet form of government by requiring many issues to be resolved at the Cabinet-level. Why has this not happened? There may be no single answer. The experience at the Centre, and also to some extent in States such as West Bengal, has been that where a large party forms a coalition with the involvement of many small parties, it is the former which really calls the shots. The smaller parties are unable clearly to decide whether it is in their interest to curry favour with the larger party or to adopt a more assertive strategy. Usually they adopt a mix of both. The larger party develops the manipulative skill and resources to take this in its stride, particularly where no small party is large enough to threaten it on its own strength. The decline in the Cabinet system in fact reinforces the vulnerability of the smaller parties. Their representatives in government have responsibility but only nominal power. They participate in the charade for limited, local gain. Meanwhile executive power slips into hands little known and even unknown.

[The Hindu, December 14, 2002]