There are several steps that the new Prime Minister has taken which deserve to be hailed for the larger good of the country. But there are others that are worrisome, including the rather tight leash he holds on his Ministers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has completed a month. And there have been all kinds of things happening! And an analysis is most required since the hype and expectation around his becoming Prime Minister was exceptional; so every move, especially in the first few days, was being observed by the whole world with a lot of curiosity. So what has it been likeIJ Well, one thing is sure: There has been nothing bad at all.

The most excellent thing about Mr Modi has been his intent and his excellent speeches post becoming the Prime Minister. The way he addressed Parliament with calm poise, a subtle sense of humour and ubiquitous confidence, gave the nation the much-needed sense of pride that had gone totally missing over the past decade. The truth is that Gujarat has not been the only success story. Tamil Nadu too has been one; and to his immense credit, Mr Modi, like a great statesman, was so humble about learning from the Tamil Nadu model. The most-excellent has been his ‘toilets before temples’ vision. His intent of bringing toilets, education, health and electricity to every Indian is commendable. So his intent, philosophy, and statesmanship have been to me beyond even Jawaharlal Nehru’s — the best India had seen previously.

While Nehru had great macro-philosophy, Mr Modi’s thoughts are not only great but rooted with non-elitist reality and work ethics. Thus, while we all know where we reached with Nehruvian ethics, as of today Mr Modi deserves a genuine chance of far greater success and more. That’s how excellent he has been in his presentation.

Mr Modi’s admirable move has been to empower bureaucrats and shake them up. While many say that bureaucrats are upset at the sixday weeks and strict time discipline, I think the reality is to the contrary. Based on my interactions with some of the bureaucrats, I feel a new sense of pride has been restored in them. Many always wanted to work; however, in the environment of being subservient to the Ministers, they had got used to a life of red-tapism. Now, they feel they can deliver and bring back the due respect to their jobs.

Amongst the great also has been Mr Modi’s intent to get back clean governance. The good has been that Ministers can no more entertain businessmen and their coterie and have to communicate with them through emails; and thus, five-star hotels in New Delhi suddenly have all rooms available since there are no business delegations being entertained in the corridors of power. The good has been the cleaning up of the file culture with clean tables, no files, no garbage in political corridors. Mr Modi is clear that if the private-sector can run without piles of files falling all over from all staircases, so can the Union Government.

Now, the average of Mr Modi. It has been around the lack of action in key things. The fact that we increased rail fare prices is great; but the fact that we did nothing to plan rail security is surprising. While we speak of selling off public sector for a mere Rs 30,000 crore, the lack of efforts to remove the dole of Rs 500,000 crore to the private-sector is worrisome. While a toilet in each home is a great thought, and so is education for all, I do not want them to remain lip-services as happened with previous Governments; and to that effect, the lack of an action plan till now, is scary to me — given that it should have been drawn up in the first two weeks. These are things India absolutely needs more than anything. The lack of action in making the judiciary more effective has also been another average aspect till now.

let’s now come to the scary part. To me, what has been scary is Mr Modi’s hurried approach to a few, very good steps he has in mind. So, to me, the scary part is that all Ministers have been virtually reduced to the status of glorified peons. They have to submit asset details of direct and indirect relatives; they can’t meet businessmen; they can’t buy new cars; they can’t even buy anything costlier than one lakh rupees without informing him; and forget everyone else, even Union Minister for Home Affairs Rajnath Singh can’t have a Private Secretary of his choice.

The Ministers of Mr Modi’s Cabinet are roaming around virtually powerless in the corridors of Parliament. While most of the above mentioned steps are great, I believe they have been implemented almost overnight, instead of in a slow and steady manner.

India is a democracy and a democracy has its own games unfolding every minute; ergo, Mr Modi should have been very careful. While Mr Modi has got all the seats to keep the BJP in power, party members can join hands and break away or press for a new leader. Mr lK Advani visited Mr Yashwant Sinha in the jail. What was so urgentIJ To me, that’s scary for Mr Modi. Very scary!

(The writer is a management guru and honorary director of IIPM think tank)