End of the GoM era

As coalitions pass, so do Groups of Ministers

It has been reported that the government has decided that, henceforth, groups of ministers and empowered groups of ministers will not be used to take crucial decisions. Under the United Progressive Alliance government, GoMs and EGoMs had taken over a great deal of crucial policymaking. But, a statement from the government said on Saturday, henceforth "the ministries and departments will now process the issues pending before the eGoMs and GoMs and take appropriate decisions at the level of ministries and departments itself".

At most levels this is a welcome change. It is unfortunate that GoMs had developed a reputation for being little more than a forum for time-wasting and for buck-passing - both skills in which the UPA excelled. For some controversial decisions, it was impossible to figure out who could be held accountable. The line ministry would say the GoM took the decision. The GoM would say it acted on the advice of the line ministry. If the decision turned out to be problematic, there was nobody who stood up and defended it on principle - because it was nobody's baby. This bred not just a lack of accountability but an environment in which pretty much no government decision found an energetic defender - a major contributor to the cynicism and lassitude of the past five years.

However, since much confusion exists as to the importance and origin of GoMs, it is worth pointing out that they existed for very good reasons of realpolitik. In coalition ministries, it is frequently in the interest of the major party in the coalition to restrain those ministers who are from its allies. That's why some decisions that might be the province of an ally's ministry were instead referred to GoMs that were headed by powerful ministers from the major party in the coalition. GoMs were born with the coalition era, not with the UPA. They were first used by the minority government of P V Narasimha Rao, and their use was expanded by the National Democratic Alliance government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Under the UPA, however, they reached their apotheosis, with dozens of groups of ministers working on even relatively inconsequential decisions. It is worth noting that most Cabinet notes - the precursors of decisions by the full Cabinet - were in any case debated over and produced by committees of secretaries representing their various ministries. These were and are GoMs in all but name. Given the multiplicity of GoMs in recent years, therefore, they became less a site of co-ordination or of control of allies, and more of the kind of basic policy and political bargaining that defined India's coalition politics.

Now that the Indian electorate, in its wisdom, has chosen to call a time out on the coalition era and given Prime Minister Narendra Modi a majority on his own, there is no need for GoMs. Mr Modi's political capital, and his command of his Cabinet, is so vastly greater than that of many of his predecessors that he can instead expect his ministers - even from allied parties - to perform, and can insist on personal ministerial accountability. Mr Modi clearly grasps the lessons of the UPA's failures. This just raises expectations from him further.