Every schoolboy and girl has been through it, that dreaded annual assessment by the class teacher, which says "Can do better", "Gets easily distracted" and, of course, the devastating invitation to parents, "Kindly meet me".
This is that time for the Modi government. It's a whole year since Narendra Modi spoke his way into office. Now, all the time he has wasted since then must be accounted for.
The weekly reports from columnists and businessmen had begun piling up from mid-December when he got 3/70 in a class test. But it was left to the eternal and universal class teacher, Arun Shourie, to put it all together.
Shourie was fair in his assessment of Modi. It was that some good had been done, and some bad; but mostly the problem lay in what had not been done.
He blamed the company the boy kept for this. Principally, he blamed his old friend from The Indian Express days and colleague from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, Arun Jaitley, and Amit Shah, the Gujarati outsider who, along with Jaitley, has become the innermost of insiders in Lutyens Delhi.
The very next day, Jaitley - who is also known to journalists in Delhi as bureau chief - hosted a dinner for a bunch of editors and other people influential in the media. Modi found the time to attend it, for a while.
No one knows what transpired there. But a bond of secrecy was born, which reminded me of the time when 28 years ago, back in the Bofors days, Shourie told me there was no such thing as "off the record" where the prime minister was concerned, especially when he was interacting with a group.
Shourie was very "close" to Rajiv Gandhi till he became editor of The Indian Express in July 1987. He had been "close" to Modi also.
Anyway, he instructed me to write the story after a group of journalists had met Rajiv Gandhi. I did, and was roundly criticised by one and all.
Shourie's dictum remains, though: if the prime minister and the finance minister meet a large group of journalists (not individually over a cup of tea) and tell them it is all off the record, what is the purport and what is the effect?
But no matter. As Modi's interview to Time magazine shows, much of what is said at such meetings is trivial. The government merely justifies its many errors of omission and commission and says, a la the "Three Idiots", aal ij vell, don't worry, be happy.
Nothing personal
Usually, the story doesn't end with that. There is always follow-up action when the boss gets the stick for his (or her) subordinates' mistakes and errors of judgement.
History is replete with instances of bosses being forced to dump their closest associates and friends. It is a tale as old as the hills because as the saying goes, it's nothing personal, just business.
Over 17 years (1920-1937), Gandhiji parted ways with Jinnah, Motilal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. Nehru sacked T T Krishnamachari and Krishna Menon. Indira Gandhi dumped Dinesh Singh, P N Haksar and D P Dhar (to name just three). Rajiv Gandhi dumped V P Singh, Arun Nehru and Arun Singh.
Kaiser Wilhelm II sacked Bismarck. De Gaulle dumped Georges Pompidou. Richard Nixon sacked H R Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. Margaret Thatcher got rid of Michael Heseltine. George W Bush let Karl Rove go. Tony Blair fired Peter Mandelson.
In two cases of extreme prejudice, Adolf Hitler bumped off Ernst Roehm. Joseph Stalin persecuted Leon Trotsky and eventually had him eliminated - in Mexico 13 years after the latter had fled the USSR. And, nearly 1,000 years ago, Henry the Second (it is said) caused Thomas Becket to be killed.
Loyalty, even to bosom pals, shrivels before the imperatives of political exigencies, if not survival.
Sending a message
So, if Smriti Irani has been an embarrassment, will Modi send her off as a governor? If Jaitley has been lackadaisical in his handling of the all-important finance ministry, will (or should) Modi ease him out? If V K Singh has been intemperate in speech, will he be returned to sender?
These are not empty Press Club type of questions. The sad truth is that Modi the Decisive has now been replaced in public perception as Modi the Helpless, who is being let down by his ministers.
He badly needs to send out a message to an impatient country that he knows what he is doing.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
