With the media telling us that Saturday, September 3, 2017, will be the D-day in terms of India’s long overdue Cabinet reshuffle, there is intense speculation as to who will take over which portfolio.

For instance, sections of the electronic media have told us that Nitin Gadkari, the minister for road transport and highways and shipping, will also be allotted the railway ministry and that the present incumbent Suresh Prabhu will be shifted after his resignation in the wake of two train-derailments in August to the environment ministry.There are also reports that the minister for chemicals and fertilisers Ananth Kumar (100-per-cent neem-coating of urea has been introduced during his tenure to preempt diversion from agriculture to industry) will be allotted the urban development portfolio which was handled by Venkaiah Naidu until he was elected as the Vice- President of India. And then there is speculation that ministers of state like Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore could be promoted to Cabinet-rank.

However, what is intriguing is the comparative absence of speculation as to who will be India’s defence minister so as to relieve the finance minister (FM) Arun Jaitley of the additional responsibility he has been holding for almost six months ever since Manohar Parrikar went back to Goa as chief minister in the middle of March.

Defence is surely an an important portfolio, given the frequent tensions with `distant’ neighbours like Pakistan and China. Which raises the query of why if no names come to mind, the factor of domain expertise is not considered. Surely, if some degree of domain expertise is required for portfolios like finance and law, the same should hold good for defence. America’s Secretary for Defense is James Mattis, a retired US Marine Corps general. China’s defence minister Chang Wanquan has served as a general. One of Israel’s most outstanding defence ministers Moshe Dayan (who held that portfolio during the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War) had earlier served as the Chief of the Israel Defence Forces from 1953 to 1958.

In the Nehruvian era, when the focus was on non-violence and peace, there may have been a perception that domain expertise was not required for the defence minister. However, in today’s complex world and given the constant tensions on the borders, India’s defence minister need not be someone who has to learn on the job at a time when there are regular reports on how the country’s defence preparedness is lagging behind that of China..

There are any number of retired Indian generals, admirals and air marshals who have the required domain expertise for the defence ministry portfolio. They have spent a lifetime serving the country and in putting the national interest above everything else. They are also trained to be accountable to the democratically- elected government. To assume that a defence minister with a services background will try to subvert a democratically-elected government is to equate India with Pakistan or worse.

Domain expertise is something all governments including the Modi sarkar could do with. For instance, I have often wondered why Colonel (retd) Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore could not have been given the portfolio for sports when he was inducted as the minister of state for Information and broadcasting in November 2014. Rathore is the only Olympian in the Modi government and that too with a silver medal in trap-shooting at the 2004 Athens Games. Rathore’s first-hand experience of what it takes to win an Olympic medal in an individual event would have come in handy for the 2016 Rio Games when India returned with just one silver and one bronze. Rathore’s experience could still come in handy by way of national preparation for the 2020 Olympics.