European Pressphoto AgencyPrime Minister Manmohan Singh, in a blue turban, with Vice President Hamid Ansari, sixth from left and President Pranab Mukherjee, fifth from left, with the newly sworn-in ministers in New Delhi on Oct. 28.India's most recent cabinet reshuffle, the third since the United Progressive Alliance was re-elected in 2009, had a familiar, head-spinning feel to it.
Once again, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has moved ministers from one massive and fundamental issue that needs serious attention and reform in India, like commerce or roads or petroleum, to another, often completely unrelated, issue.
In the current reshuffle, among other changes, the law minister became the minister of external affairs, and the petroleum minister became the minister for science and technology. In January of 2011, Mr. Singh made the minster for rural development the minister for science and technology and nominated a new law minister and petroleum minister, among other changes.
Political experts say this strategy, of swapping out top lieutenants in rapid succession, is preventing badly needed development from happening in the country.
These “changes appear arbitrary, and don't have any apparent logic for the efficient functioning of the ministries,†said Neelam Deo, the director of Gateway House, a research institution in Mumbai, who has been the Indian ambassador to Denmark and the Ivory Coast. Ministers are changed for state politics an d political preferences, not their expertise, she said.
As the leadership of the ministry passes from hand to hand, decisions that are made are often myopic, and sometimes even harmful in the long term, critics say. Very often, projects that open with pomp and planning by one minister, who has spent some time understanding a particular sector, are abandoned or reversed by his successor in an attempt to stand out or second-guess why the predecessor was removed.
For many ministers, this reshuffling has been almost constant since the U.P.A. won the last national election.
Take, for instance, Kamal Nath. Since 2009 alone, he has been minister for commerce and industry, minister of road transport and highways, minister for urban development and, as of this past weekend, minister of parliamentary affairs, a politically crucial position given the deadlocked Parliament.
In several of these positions, he started with gusto, only to leave the ministry with goal s unmet. As commerce minister, for example, a role he first took in 2004, Mr. Nath spoke against subsidies for American farmers, pledging to end them in world trade talks, and arguing the point so vigorously that a World Trade Organization meeting was suspended. (Now, Brazil is considered the leading developing nation in that push). As roads minister, he pledged to build 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, of highway a day. (There's no way that number can be met, his successor said recently.)
Urban development, a key post for a rapidly urbanizing India whose cities lack basic necessities like enough water and proper garbage disposal, is sure to take a back seat to Mr. Nath's new, additional, post when India's embittered Parliament gets back in session.
Constant cabinet changes are an inevitable consequence of the instability of coalition politics in a parliamentary democracy like India's, analysts said. “Where the people's mandate is fractured and you have a fractured polity, frequent cabinet reshuffle is likely,†says Satish Misra, a senior fellow in politics and governance at the Observer Research Foundation in Mumbai.
You have to take into account the political survivability of the government, he said. Otherwise, “we have to ask â€" would frequent elections be any better for governance?â€
Calls and e-mails to Mr. Singh's spokesman on the topic were not immediately returned.
Another reason for the merry-go-round of ministers is the U.P.A.'s multi-headed decision-making process, say government officials and analysts. While Mr. Singh announces these new appointments, he doesn't call all the shots. Instead, the Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi and sometimes her son, Rahul, are also involved in the process, which can undercut any strategic plan the prime minister may have, they say.
Knowing the reasons behind these reshuffles doesn't make them any less perplexing.
Jairam Ramesh, the head of the govern ment's sanitation and water ministry, as well as the rural development ministry, started a nationally recognized campaign against open defecation, a widespread problem in India which is responsible for millions of illnesses and deaths every year. He was unceremoniously yanked out of the position last weekend and replaced by Bharatsinh Solanki, a Congress Party stalwart from the Anand district of Gujarat. (Toilet construction there, incidentally, has seriously lagged stated goals, although Mr. Solanki is not directly involved with the program.)
The railway ministry, on the other hand, which oversees India's underfunded and dangerously decrepit 40,000-mile railway network, has had six ministers in just over three years, counting Sunday's newest appointee, Pawan Kumar Bansal.
This revolving door is due, in part, to the ministry's early assignation to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has left the U.P.A. But Ms. Banerjee can't be blamed for all the chan ges. The minister before Mr. Bansal, C.P. Joshi, was in charge of the railways ministry for just two months before the most recent reshuffle, and had started to take some steps toward modernization in that time, including the creation of this real-time map of the trains operating in India. (An aside: Mr. Bansal has no experience with railways, while Mr. Solanki, the new water and toilets minister, came from the railway minister.)
In the worst-case scenario, ministers stop trying, analysts say. Sometimes because ministers “don't know how long they will remain at one position, they try to be careful not to offend at the party level and allies, so they try not to be too proactive,†Ms. Deo said.
Years of expertise on a subject are suddenly made worthless by these reshuffles, Ms. Deo of Gateway House said. Pallam Raju, for example, was minister of state for seven years in the defense ministry, but he has been moved into the human resources development. “Why is he moved there? What expertise does he have there?†she asked.
Very occasionally, the frequent shuffling can actually work to a minister's advantage.
Take, for instance, P. Chidambaram, who was named finance minister this summer. His appointment is widely credited with helping to restart the financial reform process, which included an announcement that foreign investment will be allowed in India's multibrand retail sector.
Mr. Chidambaram should be able to get things done in the finance ministry. After all, it's the third time in his political career he's held the position.
