PRIME DIRECTIVES

Prime Ministers are prominent political actors in parliamentary democracies, but there is little understanding of how they take decisions and are held accountable by parliaments and the public.

- Zoya Hasan

Neerja Chowdhury’s new book, How Prime Ministers Decide, fills that gap with its gripping account of India’s prime ministerial politics. The book offers a ringside view of power struggles, intrigues and rivalries at the highest levels of the political establishment over the past four decades. In its substantive analysis of elite politics and the making and unmaking of prime ministers, it offers practical evidence of how they deal with crises, with many interesting anecdotes of how things happened, who the major actors were at critical junctures, and how they engaged with each other. However, the book shies away from documenting and analysing how prime ministers take crucial decisions and why they took the steps they did.

HOW PRIME MINISTERS DECIDE CHRONICLES THE HANDLING OF SIX MAJOR DECISIONS TAKEN BY SIX PMS BETWEEN 1980 AND 2014

The author chronicles the handling of six major decisions taken by six prime ministers between 1980 and 2014, which should be rewarding for those interested in contemporary history. From this chronicle, it appears that all our prime ministers were free agents enjoying complete autonomy from socio-economic forces and institutions that act as a check on their power. Decision-making in all six cases lacks institutionalisation and transparency. It is a completely centralised, top-down affair, despite the democratisation and federalisation witnessed in the polity in recent decades. That’s the key conclusion embedded in the narrative.

HOW PRIME MINISTERS DECIDE
by Neerja Chowdhury