There is an emerging pattern in the timetable of any Government at the Centre that succeeds in completing its full five-year tenure. The first year is, quite predictably, preoccupied with the euphoria of victory and the anticipation of change, both of personnel and policy. The period from the second to the beginning of the fourth year is devoted to the more mundane issues of governance and marked by some notable successes and some retreats. The election season starts kicking in from the fourth year, a time when the Opposition gets extra active and when some of the other contradictions inside the Government and the ruling dispensation starts surfacing. It is the management of the final 18 months of a Government that invariably sets the terms of the next election. Good works of the past are often forgotten or drowned in the negative chatter of the present.

A feature of the Narendra Modi that assumed charge in May 2014 was its relative stability for the first four years. This wasn’t only on account of the election victories the BJP and its partners notched up in successive State elections, particularly the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election of 2017. Nor was this stability really shaken by the defeats in Bihar and Delhi in 2016. The main reason for the stability was that the line of command was clearly set from Day One of the Government. The political and moral authority of Prime Minister Modi was total and while individual Ministers had scope for departmental autonomy, they were guided by a hierarchical discipline. Those who violated the coherence of the Government through either individual recklessness or indifferent performance were not summarily dismissed. They were gently cautioned and if that didn’t work, had their portfolios changed.

What added to the coherence of the Government the fact that its energies were not squandered in fire-fighting exercises. Looking back at the past four years, it is difficult to identify occasions the Government seemed in ‘crisis’ owing to individual misdemeanours or embarrassing ‘leaks. One of the reasons the UPA-2 Government appeared dysfunctional was that it was constantly preoccupied tackling the damaging after-effects of either scandals or explaining embarrassing revelations from within the Government. A lot of the damage to the UPA-2 was inflicted by the media which became participants in the political game. The charge against the Modi Government that it quite effectively gagged the media is significant in this context. The NDA Government never put institutional obstacles in the path of either free expression or even investigative journalism. What it did do, however, was to ensure the integrity of the Government’s decision-making process by preventing ‘leaks’ of decisions that were still under consideration. In other words, it ensured that decision-making was not stymied by motivated and selective revelations of initiatives that were still underway.

Consequently, the opportunities for ‘investigative’ journalism became limited since the Government ensured the plugging of potential leaks. Future historians should marvel at the fact that a monumental exercise such as demonetisation was announced without premature disclosure. Undeniably, there were many hiccups along the way and constant fine-tuning, but these problems owed essentially to the cat and mouse game being played between the Government and those who were anxious to either regularise or launder their unaccounted cash holdings. The wisdom of demonetisation will be a subject of debate for decades to come but the integrity of the measure has not been yet questioned with any measure of credibility.

It is in this context that the ugly civil war in the Central Bureau of Investigation assumes importance. The charge that the CBI has not lived up to the autonomy that was expected of it and has often been only too anxious to fulfil partisan political agenda is neither new nor lacking in truth. Nor is there anything unique about colleagues trying to undermine each other by levelling charges of corruption. In the scrap involving Alok Verma and his subordinate Rakesh Asthana both sides used the media to throw mud at each other. In the process it once again re-opened a window of opportunity for a section of the media to resume its power broking role. On its part, the Government took its eye off the ball and allowed the rivalry to get out of hand. No doubt matters were complicated by the fact that a CBI Director believes he occupies a quasi-Constitutional post, regulated by the Supreme Court, which gives him exceptional insulation from the codes of conduct applicable to normal Government servants. Yet, despite the personality issues involved, the CBI spat was greatly damaging to the Government. More than anything else, it has dented the image of coherence that was a key selling point of the Modi Government.

The present Government depends disproportionately on the Prime Minister’s image of decisiveness and incorruptibility. The public mudslinging, accompanied by charges of corruption both sides have levelled against each other, have hit at these two attributes of this Government. The issue is not who is right and who is wrong. With a media hungry to go for the kill, bolstered by informal briefings by both sides and other departments that have a vested interest in muddying the waters, there is an impression created that the bad old days are back with a vengeance. Potentially, the CBI civil war could have a knock-on effect in other departments of the Government where officers may feel emboldened to resume the habits that have been put on hold for the past four years. Finally, the CBI war has emboldened the remnants of the old Establishment that are highly resentful of their own growing irrelevance. They are now busy spreading the impression that the CBI spat is indicative of the Modi Government’s eroding authority which, in turn, suggests that the political tide is turning. Unless the Government can reassert its authority, it will find it difficult to prevent further cracks in the edifice of Government.