Humiliating. That’s the only way to describe what happened in India earlier this month. It was bad enough that people, originally from the northeast, living and working in various parts of the country, left Bangalore, Pune, Chennai and Mumbai in droves overnight because of some threatening SMSes, emails, mainly rumours. But the conduct of the ministry of home affairs (MHA) inspired even less confidence.

The thing is: the government could not prevent the exodus. Not a single individual believed the government or the MHA when it said it had managed to track down the culprit websites that uploaded the pictures that had caused the panic; and that most of them – 76 – belonged to Pakistan. Reporters who stalk the home ministry as part of their beat, bureaucrats, senior ministers and other responsible people in the government were openly sceptical of the MHA’s assertion; heck, even the RSS didn’t believe it. The questions were: (a) How did the MHA know the messages and morphed images originated in Pakistan, because technology tells us they could have originated anywhere? (b) Even supposing they did, this is only 76, what about the other 24 or so? (c) If the MHA could locate the origins of 76 websites to Pakistan, why was it taking so long to crack down on the Indian ones? (d) Finally, why was the MHA telling reporters off the record that organisations ranging from right-wing Hindu groups to Maoist outfits could also be involved?

The more you think about it, the angrier you get. Sixteen people have been arrested in Karnataka — but under section 153 (A) of the Indian Penal Code (spreading enmity among various communities). This probably means they saw an MMS on their phones or forwarded an email and were arrested. Just four people have been arrested in Pune under Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, which relates to hacking or falsifying computer images. It will be interesting to see how the government pursues the latter in court. All it has done so far is to punish the piano player — because it can’t find anyone else.

A Manipur-based newspaper, Hueiyen Lanpao, noted in its editorial that it was stupid to react to rumours, but added acerbically: “To say that exodus has subsided after everyone has left sounds really ridiculous.” True.

If Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde had had a brilliant administrative career in all the jobs he has previously held, he could have been cut some slack — after all, he’s not even a month old in his new job, or jobs because he’s also the leader of the House in the Lok Sabha with heavy co-ordination responsibilities. But this is what is so terrifying: that Shinde has so far been an underperformer, at best, and his current conduct does not reassure.

Shinde, it is now well known, began life in the Bombay Police and was a low-level functionary in the government. He resigned from his safe government job and joined politics in 1971, presumably fired by Indira Gandhi’s promise that not only would “Garibi be hataoed” but that Dalits would get a New Deal. In this, Shinde was among thousands of idealistic young men who believed abolition of the privy purse and bank nationalisation were the answers to India’s problems — a position he has since revised, but not in any great measure, judging from the nine Budgets he was to present later in his career as Maharashtra’s finance minister.

He became chief minister, but his most important job was as All India Congress Committee general secretary, when he was in charge of Uttar Pradesh and the northeast and was responsible for Sonia Gandhi’s constituency, Amethi. This is what made him virtually her right-hand man. He was the Congress president’s choice for the post of vice-president, an election he lost. Because of her close interaction, Sonia Gandhi’s relationship with him can be described in one word: “trust”.

So you have a home minister who was appointed for the same reasons as another home minister, Shivraj Patil: because the party boss believed in him, not because he had a reputation for efficiency.

Then, of course, was Shinde’s long and entirely undistinguished stint in the power ministry. He certified himself successful: he said his six and a half years in the ministry saw an additional generation of 80,000 Mw, which was a “record”. The rest of India should be forgiven for disagreeing. “How can anyone dub me inefficient when the 11th Plan saw addition of 55,000 Mw of electricity, which was two and a half times of capacity addition in the 8th, 9th and 10th Plans?” he asked. What he did not say was how much the slippage was from the target: the 10th Plan set power generation target at 41,000 Mw and the actual performance was a little over half that. The 11th Plan, too, has seen serious slippages. The prime minister mentioned power shortage as an area of concern four times in his speeches during Shinde’s stewardship of the ministry.

A bureaucrat remarked that because of the way systems were put in place when P Chidambaram was home minister, it will take at least a year to make a hash of the MHA. By then it will be time for the next general elections. But so many things can happen between now and then: another cyber attack, infiltration bids, communal riots … there is, after all, no shortage of assorted villains. Will Sushil Kumar Shinde be able to cope? Note the question mark.