When he stormed the Raisina Hill citadel of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) - and other allied services - last May, socially at least Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi was a rank outsider to Delhi. He was, as the ladies of Edwardian England would have said, "that awful man".

Mani Shankar Aiyar echoed that view perfectly, both in tone and text. He still does with his facial expressions when he appears on TV.

For the aristocracy - landed, corporate, caste or in the case of New Delhi, bureaucratic - the awfulness arose from middle-class values, at whose centre lay scruple, propriety and moral conduct. For those who call the shots, these things are inconvenient.

Mr Modi, however, wasn't from the middle class. He was, if anything, from much lower down. In any case, Delhi's arbiters had already declared him persona non grata.

So Mr Modi was least bothered by the dos and don'ts of Delhi's eyebrow-raising class. But, alas, that corner room in which he now sits in South Block has an unfortunate tendency. It moulds its occupier in ways that he or she has never agreed to be moulded.

It is, in many ways, like an anulom marriage, which happens when a person marries someone from a higher status, either in class or caste, more usually the latter. He or she then acquires the rights and graces of the caste or class into which she (or he) has been married into. In the West, they call it upward mobility.

This is what has happened to Mr Modi in the short time that he has been in office. By becoming prime minister, he has married the bureaucracy, till his defeat does them part.

Be warned, Sir

It is early days yet, but the signs are all there that he is getting captured by the ladies' maids of the government. The bureaucracy is slowly but surely creating a new Modi persona.

This Mr Modi is allowed minor defiance and to smirk on TV, as long as he docilely obeys on the larger issues. It is a pleasure to watch the taming.

As always, the behavioural norms are being imposed by the same tongue-clucking, the same instilling of fear and the same classic words: "It is just not done." Et inconveniens est.

So, without perhaps realising it, Narendra Modi is becoming a gentleman. Give him a few more months and he will become indistinguishable from the people he professes to despise.

To understand the ongoing transformation, it is necessary to understand that in Delhi only the power elite really counts for anything. This elite is very tiny and comprises officers of the rank of joint secretary and above in just four ministries - home, finance, external affairs and defence.

The other officers of similar rank matter, of course, but they are the lesser nobility. Politicians, even ministers, don't matter at all.

The main job of the core elite is to either first try to wear the prime minister down, or if that doesn't work, frighten the daylights out of him (or her). Few prime ministers realise what's going on and how they are being had.

The weapon used for wearing down is called "process". It consists of internally and logically inconsistent rules, which the bureaucracy has made to cover its ample backside. Nothing stymies prime ministers more than these rules. They become helpless like beached whales.

As for frightening the prime minister, three weapons are used. One is calculated leaks. The second is malicious whispering campaigns. The third, which no prime minister can ignore, is the use of slanted intelligence inputs.

The prime minister's goose is properly cooked if all three begin to happen at the same time. You can ask Manmohan Singh.

What Mr Modi can do

Mr Modi now needs to ask himself: if the Cabinet makes policy and the legislature the laws to give those policies legal sanction, who makes the rules for carrying out the two? The bureaucracy.

And this role is always used by it to subvert the legislative intent and policy purpose. It is called "file ko ghumana" (make the file go round and round in a web and welter of process for years).

A prime minister, therefore, needs to take on the bureaucracy not by transfers alone - those are essential and important - but by severely curtailing its power to make rules. Not one of them has done so till now. All have rued it.

How is this to be done? Simple: ask the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, which is not doing anything useful now, to vet the rules. Unleash Professors Panagariya and Debroy on the babus.

They will fight back viciously as always. But this is Mr Modi's great chance to cut off their spinach, its power to make rules. If he doesn't, because they have started to frighten him, well, then as the Gabbar Singh said, "Jo dar gaya, woh mar gaya."