A joke often heard in the corrid­ors of power is that files had to travel from ‘Pillai to Pillai’ in the UPA government and now things get settled much faster—between Misra and Mishra. There may not have been too many ‘Pill­ais’ in Manmohan Singh’s government, but there was surely a predominance of Malayali officers, including many from the Kerala cadre. And ­Misra and Mishra, or ‘Bade’ Misra and ‘Chhote’ Mishra, are PM Narendra Modi’s principal secretary Nripendra Misra and additional pri­ncipal secretary P.K. Mis­hra. Along with national security adviser Ajit Doval, they form the fulcrum of Modi’s PMO, and all three have been given the status of cabinet ministers, making them senior to the MoS in the PMO, Jit­endra Singh, in the ­table of precedence. Earl­ier, when their position was equivalent to that of an MoS, protocol allowed a cabinet minister to call Mishra to his office to discuss matters of transfers, postings and appointments. Not anymore.

“Power was...