It's not about whether schools will be closed for Christmas or not. The way the Christmas kerfuffle unfolded shows us, yet again, the larger problem with Smriti Irani.

By Lakshmi Chaudhry and Sandip Roy

“Therefore, Modi’s appointment of Irani came as a horrible shock to me. Here is someone who is not just poorly educated and mal-educated – she is just Class 12th pass – but she even lied in her affidavit about her qualifications. Nor does she have the learning of a lived experience. Look at the trajectory of this woman – at 18, she leaves home for the glamour industry, to become a fashion model, a beauty queen, then gets into saas-bahu serials, which, even by the standards of the entertainment industry, is the lowest genre. It is brainless. She could not even qualify to head the National School of Drama.”

Thus raged Madhu Kishwar in her recent interview with Scroll.in, revealing the ugly rancour the Human Resources and Development Minister inspires in her critics.

Kishwar was one of the many, Narendra Modi supporters and naysayers alike, who were aghast at her high-visibility appointment back in June. But at the time such vitriol could easily be dismissed as elitism. “Someone remind me. Did Rabindranath Tagore go to university? He certainly established one & had enlightened views on education,” tweeted Swapan Dasgupta. Shobhaa De added her two cents. “Smriti Irani, lagey raho. The real illiterates are your critics.”

Unfortunately, nearly six months later, there is little evidence of Irani’s enlightened views on education, or much else. She has lurched instead from one controversy to the next, handling neither her job nor her public image with anything approaching competence. Yes, she’s become a target, and unfairly so -- has any other Modi mantri been the target of as many leaks? -- but many of her woes are wholly self-inflicted, including the latest fracas over Christmas. Within the span of her short tenure as cabinet minister, Irani has failed to perform across all four basic parameters of leadership: qualifications, philosophy, competence, reputation.

Qualifications: The (non)education of Smriti Irani

The education portfolio is, as Aroon Poorie writes in India Today, “a poisoned chalice”. It’s critically important and dauntingly complex in a country like India where 54% of the population is under 25 and “only 41.1 per cent children in the 5th standard in rural government schools could read a Class II textbook." Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Singh, Kapil Sibal have all burned their fingers trying to reform the HRD department, proving that degrees are no guarantee for success. Education does not need a vice chancellor as minister but as academic Andre Beteille says “it would not be easy to take charge as minister unless he or she has knowledge or experience inside the system.”

And the system, a large and confounding behemoth, continually trips Irani, keeping her sitting on files, leaving positions vacant or vacillating when crises erupt like the row over the four-year course at Delhi University. However, ignorance is not irremediable, but a handicap that can be overcome with will and application -- and without apology, as Modi himself proves. But Irani instead has dealt with her disadvantages with far less grace, as her brag about that six-day Yale “degree” reveals. Where Modi uses his chaiwallah roots as a badge of pride, a weapon to expose his critics’ elitism. Irani wants to cover up her correspondence course with the chintzy pedigree of a Yale certificate.

The HRD ministry represents a steep learning curve for anyone who chooses to take on its Herculean charge. Over the past six months, Irani has shown little evidence of learning, even from her own mistakes. Over and again, she is tripped up by her own actions, and the reactions they provoke -- to which all she can offer is an aggrieved, dismissive outrage. None of this bodes well for a Minister in charge of education.

Philosophy: The 'Smriti Irani Kaun Hai' Problem.

When she was appointed HRD minister and eyebrows shot up, a Congress leader told The Telegraph that perhaps a “modern” person like Irani with no personal stake in the battle was not such a bad choice. “The denial of the HRD ministry to hardcore RSS leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi, who played havoc with the education system during Vajpayee’s rule, is a positive signal,” the leader said. Irani tried to play up that image by saying loftily “When it comes to education, it’s not rajneeti but rashtraneeti that prevails.”

But as minister, she has instead followed some kind of muddled Smriti-neeti, mostly appearing to both kowtow to RSS demands and earn its displeasure. On 30th October delegates from 11 RSS-affiliated outfits spent six hours with Union HRD minister Smriti Irani, her sixth meeting with RSS leaders in six months. All this prompting columnist and Modi sympathiser Tavleen Singh to tweet “The RSS does not know enough about Indian history to be allowed by the HRD to rewrite it. Bigotry cannot pass for history.”

And yet the Indian Express reported soon after that the RSS is peeved about Irani’s “indecisiveness” and upset about how she does “not show enthusiasm” for the names it has proposed for key posts. None of which seemed to help Irani when she was accused of being an “RSS mascot” during the row over replacing German with Sanskrit in Kendriya Vidyalayas. A policy change, Irani sort-of rolled back and sort-of defended -- position that earned her no fans on either side of the debate.

At least, Murli Manohar Joshi had a clear philosophy: 'Indianise' education and purge it of 'Leftist bias.' Joshi, at least, knew where he stood, even if it was on losing ground. Irani comes instead, as India Today, as both appeasing and indecisive, neither of which helps her stake a position from which she can fight her battles. Sometimes you just cannot be both saas and bahu. You have to pick your role.

Competence: Smriti is the Anti-Modi

Campaigning for Irani in Amethi, Candidate Modi sold his “chhoti bahen" as a miracle-worker who would rescue the Rahul Gandhi constituency from decades of neglect. He made clear to the audience: A vote for Smriti was a vote for Modi’s model of governance. It is ironic, therefore, that much of Irani’s troubles appear to spring from her inability to duplicate Modi’s leadership skills.

The Prime Minister famously relies on his babus not his ministers. His signature style of governance entails cultivating a coterie of knowledgeable and talented administrators who are entrusted with the task of executing his vision. A style that was writ large over his first meeting with the PMO officials:

"You don't have to fear (while doing your job) ... I am available (to protect you)," sources quoted the PM as saying… Pointing out that he was a "team player", Modi asked the secretaries to build their teams and lead from the front by focussing on issues of governance. Referring to demoralization in the bureaucracy, sources said, the PM unequivocally told the officials that their "10-year fatigue will end ... now you will enjoy working ... you all are talented people".

In stark contrast, his HRD minister has developed a “strained relationship” with her bureaucracy, as India Today reports in its cover story:

Shastri Bhawan, where her ministry is located, has heard several tales of the tongue lashing she has given bureaucrats. There are instances of her ticking off senior bureaucrats in full board meetings in ways that made others in the room squirm. She is said to have told a top official at a meeting that even she, with her little education, had more brains than him. At another meeting, she is said to have accused the top functionary of selling out the sovereignty of the country much to the embarrassment of the others present. A woman joint secretary is said to have sought voluntary repatriation after being pulled up by the minister. The ouster of the head of a significant academic body was preceded with an exchange at a meeting where Irani silenced the official by declaring "I am the Council".

That’s the polar opposite of Modi’s “I’m a team player.”

Now even a Steve Jobs was infamous for his people management skills, but Irani, who has little expertise or power base, should have prioritised cultivating a circle of trusted and talented advisers – more so given a portfolio as dauntingly complex as education. Surely that’s the first rule of competence, whether you’re a Harvard MBA, a twelfth class pass or a former chai-walah.

Reputation: Image management by outrage

There is probably no minister in the Modi cabinet, other than the PM himself, who should understand the power of image management better than Smriti Irani. “Her transformation into the iconic bahu, Tulsi Virani, taught her the importance of image. And not for a moment has she let go of it,” write Veena Sandhu and Kavita Chowdhury in Business Standard. Irani always turns up in Parliament in “ghar ghari ki rani, Tulsi Virani” regalia with the prominent red bindi, the sindoor in her hair and the sari held in place with the lotus brooch.

However when it comes to image management beyond the cosmetics of appearance, Smriti Irani keeps falling flat on her face. As minister, Irani tells India Today she would rather “bring reforms silently." But she does not follow her own advice. When the Christmas story broke, she adopted a tone of shrill outrage, shooting off tweet after tweet accusing TOI of irresponsible journalism. After the Indian Express and Hindu did their own investigations, and the actual HRD circulars surfaced directed not just at Navodaya schools but even IIMs and IITs, Irani was caught with egg on her face. Either she had no clue about her own ministry's directives or she was just trying to brazen it out with high dudgeon -- which is hardly an effective strategy since now she is suspected of lying.

Smriti Irani does not want to be the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. But she also wants to be the minister who leaves her mark by bringing Good Governance Day to schools. The two goals are not antithetical. But this was a singularly ham-handed way to go about it especially in the middle of a conversion row. “For the life of me, I can’t understand why people are not understanding what I am saying,” she protested during the Sanskrit brouhaha.

Perhaps it’s because she just sounds like someone flailing for direction, switching from belligerence to backtrack at the drop of a tweet.

The problem with Smriti Irani is not that she is “Class 12 pass”. The problem is that she has proven to be an incompetent minister, thus proving the Kishwars of the world exactly right. And she has only herself to blame.