When Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised ‘minimum government and maximum governance’ after assuming charge in 2014, few realized that this would entail the fulcrum of government being centralized in the hands of a few personalities operating out of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

Since 2014, the country's political control has been clearly entrenched in the hands of the PM and his trusted lieutenants. While Amit Shah, initially as the president of the ruling party with its brutal majority and later as Home Minister, anchored the BJP’s absolute dominance over the political landscape, it was the PMO that operated as the nerve centre of the government and, by consequence, all governance structures.

The all-powerful troika of Nripendra Mishra, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister during the first Modi government, Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor (NSA) since 2014, and P.K. Mishra, the Additional Principal Secretary formed the lynchpin of Modi’s governance architecture and steered the rudders of the nation from 7 Race Course Road, named as Lok Kalyan Marg in September 2016.

Albeit ministers like Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh proved to be key backers for the PM in his first cabinet, which had presumed inner-party competitors like Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari and Venkaiah Naidu, among others, it was the troika in the PMO who operated as the eyes and ears of the prime minister and guided his stewardship of the nation. 

Cut to 2019 when Modi returned to power with an aura of invincibility and powered by a bigger majority than in 2014, the Cabinet as well as the PMO saw notable changes. The absence of veterans like Jaitley and Swaraj was compensated by next-tier loyalists like Nirmala Sitaraman, Piyush Goyal, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javedekar, and so on, who formed vital cogs in Modi 2.0.

However, it was the dramatic arrival of a new brand of leaders like S. Jaishankar, Ashwini Vaishnaw, and even Mansukh Mandaviya – all with enviable portfolios – that marked Modi's style of shaking up government and governance at regular intervals.  

The dramatic elevation of S. Jaishankar as External Affairs Minister (EAM) at the beginning of Modi 2.0, and that too months after he retired as Foreign Secretary had a ripple effect not just in the government’s character and the foreign policy edifice but also in protocols and conventions. As Foreign Secretary, Jaishankar was placed below the Principal Secretary and the NSA – to whom he reported to in the national security chain of command.

His unexpected appointment as Foreign Minister shortly after this tenure as Foreign Secretary and retirement from the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) has had no precedent in independent Indian history, with the only closest instance being of Natwar Singh who served as Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, and many years later becoming the Foreign Minister in the Manmohan Singh government.

What though upset the applecart was the protocol and rankings in the PMO. With Jaishankar being elevated as a cabinet minister, with membership in the Cabinet Committee on Security, both Principal Secretary Mishra and NSA Doval were subordinated to Jaishankar in the hierarchy. To correct this situation, PM Modi undertook another structural correction by elevating the NSA, the Principal Secretary, as well as the Additional Principal Secretary to Cabinet Minister rank, in the process, not just setting a new precedent but also complicating the bureaucratic hierarchy with implications for the democratic structure as well.

Going by India’s democratic traditions, bureaucrats, who are not directly accountable to the citizens, are not expected to be placed on an equal hierarchal footing with Cabinet ministers who are answerable to the parliament. Well, in Modi’s India, rules can be bent or radically changed if it suits the political agenda of a prime minister who was repeatedly voted to power with overwhelming mandates by the electorate.  

It is in this context that the surprise appointment of Shaktikanta Das as Principal Secretary-II in the last week of February has come as not just a surprise, but also as a possible harbinger of things to come.

PS-II, for that matter, also established a new convention in the history of Principal Secretaries to the Prime Ministers, which originally started in 1964 with the appointment of L.K. Jha as the PS to Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, and subsequently, Indira Gandhi. 

It could be recalled that despite the Cabinet-rank elevation, Nripendra Mishra soon exited from the PS position in the second Modi government and was succeeded by the incumbent Additional Principal Secretary, P.K. Mishra, who continues to be PS-I in the new scheme of things. The senior Mishra, on moving out of PMO, was handed over two significant missions – as vice-chairman of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) and the special officer in charge of Ram Mandir construction.

Both were key political missions for PM Modi. Nripendra Mishra presided over the final extermination of the Nehruvian legacy at the NMML and converted it into the Prime Ministers Museum and Library (PMML), and completed the construction of the new Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the coronation of the Ram Lalla well in time for the Lok Sabha elections of 2024.

With Nripendra Mishra now destined to fade into oblivion, the question now emerges about what fate awaits his successor, P.K. Mishra, who too looks ripe for a retirement sojourn. Not to say that the Junior Mishra had not already retired. As a 1972-batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), P.K. Mishra had retired in 2008, and, earlier, had served as Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, between 2001-2004.

Mishra’s appointment as Additional PS in 2014 in the PMO was, for that matter, a post-retirement calling. Despite promising a break in 2014 from Delhi’s establishmentarian ways – akin to US President Donald Trump’s clamour to eliminate the ‘deep state’ in Washington – PM Modi was seen to have relied on the same old bureaucratic tradition of pulling out senior bureaucrats from retirement and placing them at the helm of his administration.

The PMO set for an overhaul

Having imposed an unofficial cut-off of 75 years for his political brethren, Modi was expected to infuse fresh and younger blood into the administrative leadership. Instead, he relied on the conventional wisdom that only veteran hands could handle India’s colossal bureaucratic edifice with both Mishras spearheading the administrative coordination and programme implementation while Ajit Doval steered the national security establishment.

As this arrangement matured from a seemingly interim set-up to an entrenched establishment, the Modi regime lost the opportunity to harness the initial momentum for fresh ideas and out-of-the-box thinking that should have guided the radical transformation in governance and grand strategic setup that was the outcome of more than 50 years of Congress rule.

Beyond the time-tested and Western-inspired concepts of economic and infrastructural development, the developmental and strategic paradigms of the Modi regime seem to have stagnated into the mould of the old guard.

As Modi 3.0 now paces towards its first anniversary, the time is ripe for a revamp of the bureaucratic and national security leadership that is anchored in the PMO. Accordingly, the arrival of Shaktikanta Das might be signalling the transition which could see him sharing functional roles with P.K. Mishra, possibly leading to the latter’s exit in the coming months.

As a veteran of the Indian Administrative Service, Das comes with not just administrative experience which includes stints as secretary in charge economic affairs and revenue but also his stewardship of the Reserve Bank of India as its governor from 2018 until December last year. Besides negotiating the Indian banking sector through the volatile pandemic period, Das was also named as the Governor of the Year 2023 by the Central Banking journal. 

It could be assumed that Das is being groomed to succeed P.K. Mishra as the patron bureaucrat of the government, who could oversee the bureaucracy from the PMO and implement his agenda and vision. Having set the precedent of two principal secretaries, it is likely that PM Modi could bring in other seasoned bureaucrats of his preference, Amitabh Kant for instance, as PS-II in a potential post-P.K. Mishra phase.

While the Mishras could be dispensable, as was already illustrated in the case of Nripendra Mishra, it could be moot to ask whether the same logic will apply to NSA Ajit Doval or whether he will remain India’s eternal national security czar as long as PM Modi is in office. For Doval has had an aura of invincibility, well before his NSA days, but also has attained a stature of irreplaceability in the Modi scheme of things, as much as Jaishankar is for foreign affairs.

Both Doval and Jaishankar are not just seen as immaculate practitioners of national security and diplomacy, respectively, but also considered as strategic minds who could be ultimate choices for any government in power. While Doval had gained a pride of place in the strategic eco-system of the Sangh Parivar soon after his retirement, Modi literally pulled a rabbit out of the hat when he appointed Jaishankar as his Foreign Minister in his second term.

Notwithstanding numerous diplomatic setbacks in recent times, Jaishankar is set for a longer innings in his ministerial stint, at least until Modi or the BJP remains in power – though there are sections who believe he could be among the Sangh Parivar’s compromise candidates for PM if the race rages between Shah and Yogi Adityanath to succeed Modi. However, the same long rope and shelf life may be running out soon for Doval.

At 80, Doval is as old as his former PMO colleague Nripendra Mishra and 4 years older than his current colleague P.K. Mishra. Doval and Mishra represent the old guard in the governance structure, not just in terms of age but also their ideas notwithstanding their public articulations about systemic reforms and progressive policy outlooks. 

Doval’s concepts of proactive responses to security threats initially defined Modi’s strongman image and in particular the decisive actions against Pakistan and its terror infrastructure. His doctrine of ‘offensive defence,’ most evident in the surgical strike of September 2016 and the Balakot operation of 2019, implied a nation seeking its defence by attacking the origin of offensive actions against it. 

The NSA’s approach was believed to have been greatly effective in curbing Pakistan’s rogue behaviour and support to terror groups, though the jury is still out on how effective the proactive policy has been against a more powerful rival like China.

It is a known fact that the XIV Corps of the Indian Army was effective in reprising the Chinese attack at Galwan Valley in May 2020. However, proactive policies were showing their limits along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) which witnessed China’s amassment of troops and its formidable military machine.

Albeit the matching buildup by Indian troops could have stymied the Chinese inclination for further intrusions, it needed diplomatic and political momentum to move towards de-escalation as Doval’s doctrine of ‘offensive defence’ could have considerably backfired on the Chinese frontline.

In recent months, the ‘offensive defence’ doctrine had taken new transborder dimensions.

While it could have accrued some benefits through the elimination of India’s enemies in the neighbourhood, the strategy miserably backfired when enemies across the seven seas were pursued. The killing of Khalistani extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and the alleged attempt on Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the US, both attributed to Indian agencies by the respective governments, were setbacks to not just India’s standing in the western hemisphere but also to the proactive strategy of ‘targeting enemies at source.’

While the Canadian authorities went to the extent of blaming top Indian political and intelligence leadership in the Nijjar killing, the US investigators implicated an official of the Indian external agency, Research and Analyses Wing (R&AW), as the conspirator behind the attempt on Pannun, though the official was disowned by the Indian government. At the height of the crisis, a US court was reported to have issued a summons against NSA Doval, which, reportedly, even forced Doval to opt out of PM Modi’s trip to the US in September 2024. 

Though Doval joined the prime minister’s entourage in his recent visit to the US, which included Modi’s meeting with President Trump, it is more than evident that India’s intelligence establishment is experiencing a disgraceful period on account of its extra-territorial missions. Incidentally, neither the agencies nor the Indian government could effectively defend its missions or the threats caused by these extremists having safe havens in these Western countries, notwithstanding the chest-thumping done in earlier months of ‘hitting the enemies in their den.’

The moot point from these developments is the imperative of retiring the ‘old guard’ in the bureaucracy and the national security establishment, which seems to be perpetuating the interests of an apparent ‘deep state’ within the system rather than India’s national interests.

While the 68-year-old Shaktikanta Das and Amitabh Kant at 69 years could be suitable replacements for P.K. Mishra as the Principal Secretary, they could be only expected to sustain the system already in place. Having initiated alternatives like ‘lateral entry’ and seeking to infuse fresh blood into the system, the onus is on PM Modi to think beyond retired hands by identifying younger talents in the administrative cadres or beyond the system to spearhead the transformation of India’s bureaucracy from its ‘deep state’ character to a credible and transformative governance force.

The question then emerges on who could be the ideal successor of NSA Doval.

A division of turfs

The question of whether India should have a National Security Council and an official to lead it has been in debate since the time of defence reforms following the India-China war of 1962. Eventually, the need to constitute \the NSC (and a National Security Advisory Board) coordinated by a National Security Advisor and supported by a National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) came up as part of the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) recommendations and a follow-up of the 1998 nuclear tests.

These institutions, along with a Strategic Policy Group headed by the Secretary of the NSCS, were essential cogs in the nuclear command and control structure that was put in place in April 1999. With the formalization of the nuclear doctrine in 2003, the NSA had an elevated role in the Nuclear Command Authority by not just heading the Executive Council that operates the nuclear command and control structure but also being pointsman for the Political Council that decides on nuclear use.   

The NSA thus emerged as a national security czar who was not just a single-point advisor to the Prime Minister and Cabinet on security but also as the nodal authority with pivotal role in nuclear command and control, intelligence and all aspects of national security that also overlapped with national defence, internal security as well as diplomacy.

As the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) – an umbrella body for all intelligence agencies – operates within the NSCS, which is the secretariat of the NSA, the latter also becomes the intelligence czar. A notable example of the vital role in diplomacy is the NSA being the Special Representative (SR) in the talks with China.  

Incidentally, the first NSA since the constitution of the NSC, Brajesh Mishra, was also the Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. His successor, Manmohan Singh, however, ended the duality of roles by appointing T.K.A. Nair as the Principal Secretary and J.N. Dixit as the NSA. While Nair was later replaced by Pulok Chatterji in 2011, M.K. Narayanan, who was internal security advisor, replaced Dixit following the latter’s death in 2005.

The interesting aspect of this evolution of the NSA choices is the complete exclusion of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) from the national security leadership role. While Brijesh Mishra, who was both NSA and PS, was from the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Dixit and Shivshankar Menon were his successors from IFS as the NSA. Both Narayanan and Doval are from the Indian Police Service (IPS).

Interestingly, at times when the NSA was from the IFS, the Deputy National Security Advisors (DNSAs) were from the IPS. Conversely, when an IPS officer was the NSA – Narayanan and Doval – the deputies have been from the IFS. There were instances of advisors from the armed forces, with Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon being a notable example.  

However, this swapping happened only during the Manmohan Singh government, soon after Narayanan took over as NSA. Both Brijesh Mishra and J.N. Dixit had IFS officers – Satish Chandra and Vijay Nambiar – respectively as their deputies.

While Leela Ponappa and Alok Prasad were the deputies for Narayanan, there was also the sole instance then of Shekhar Dutt from the IAS serving as one of the DNSAs. Similarly, V Latha Reddy from IFS and Nehchal Sandhu from IPS, who headed the Intelligence Bureau (IB), were deputies to NSA Shivshankar Menon.

The leadership roles in NSCS considerably expanded after Doval took over as NSA with multiple deputies, largely from the IPS, handling areas like technology, intelligence and internal security while an IFS officer manages the diplomacy desk from the NSCS, evidently to coordinate with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). The incumbent Foreign Secretary, Vikram Misri, was a DNSA before his elevation as head of the foreign service, while Arvind Gupta and Pankaj Saran were the IFS officers who preceded him in that position under Doval.

The current NSCS leadership under Doval includes Rajinder Khanna, the former RAW chief, who is the Additional NSA, T.V. Ravichandran (IPS) as the DNSA in charge of the technology and intelligence cluster, Pankaj Kumar Singh (IPS) in charge of internal affairs and Pavan Kapoor, the IFS officer and DNSA in charge of the strategic and foreign affairs cluster. Besides them, there is Air Marshal Sandeep Singh as the Military Advisor, Vice Admiral Ashok Kumar as the National Maritime Security Coordinator and Lt. Gen M U Nair as the National Cyber Security Coordinator – though their equivalence in the hierarchy vis-à-vis the DNSAs is unknown.  

R.N. Ravi, the vocal governor of Tamil Nadu, was a Deputy NSA and head of JIC under Doval before his elevation to the gubernatorial position, initially in Nagaland and Meghalaya before being moved to the southern state.

The most significant aspect right now about the national security establishment, however, is the post of Additional NSA, placed above the Deputy NSA, which was recently created with former RAW chief and then DNSA, Rajinder Khanna, elevated to this new position.

In the current scheme of things, this could be a clear indication of a transition being in the works in the national security establishment. While Ravi at 73 years and Khanna at 69 years could be ideal successors for Doval, the elevation of Khanna to the newly created ‘Additional NSA’ could be signal enough that the Modi government could have already identified a successor for Doval.

By elevating one of the deputies to a new secondary position below Doval, it is evident that Khanna could be the chosen one and might be already sharing some of Doval’s current responsibilities.

This portends a good sign for the Modi government as the need for regular transitions in the administrative establishment is vital to ensure that stagnancy does not set in and new ideas emerge within the bureaucratic and national security machinery. For, despite continuity and predictability being a standard feature of Indian bureaucracy, each new official brings in change and ideas – for good or bad!

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