(The Straits Times) - NEW DELHI - SEVERAL times a week, before he turns in for the night, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh makes a call on his restricted access exchange telephone.

The man on the other end, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, is usually still at work.

Alert to a fault, Mr Narayanan, who shuns meat and neither smokes nor drinks, offers his advice in crisp, matter-of-fact tones. Reassured, the Prime Minister says good night.

If India's influential classes are to be believed, Mr Narayanan is at the apex of a 'mallu mafia' that runs New Delhi.

'Mallu' is a contraction for Malayalees, the people who speak Malayalam. This is the language of the tiny south-western state of Kerala, a province with the highest literacy levels in India and known for its deep secular traditions.

With the capital's free-spending, Punjabi-dominant crowd, 'mallu' is a faintly scornful term for the spartan intellectualism and devotion to duty characterised in the migrant from the south.

The 'mafia' sticker is as much an acknowledgement of the power the group wields as grudging respect for its clannishness, guile and lethal efficiency.

New Delhi's 'mallu mafia', however, pack no guns.

Mr Narayanan, for instance, is a God-fearing man who unfailingly bows to the deity Krishna every time he enters or leaves his government bungalow in central New Delhi.

'These guys are honest, self-effacing, committed to their jobs and offer dispassionate advice,' says a senior non-Malayalee bureaucrat.

'Of course, they have the great talent of adhering themselves to their political masters.'

New Delhi's iron frame of bureaucracy has always been greased by efficient Malayalees with names like Pillai, Sadasivan, Verghese and Menon.

But a series of top-level appointments in the Congress-led coalition government has now assembled a constellation of Malayalee bureaucrats at the apex of power.

They include the PM's Principal Secretary T.K.A. Nair, Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, Secretary to President Christy Fernandes and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon.

Three of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's key aides, including private secretary Vincent George, are Malayalees. So are Commerce Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai, securities regulator M. Damodaran and Supreme Court Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan.

When the stylish and understated Mr Menon was appointed Foreign Secretary a year ago, more than a dozen foreign service officials senior to him went on protest leave or sought early retirement. At the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Mr Nair, after an initial quiet two years, has been perceived to be influencing key appointments lately.

But no one draws as much envy as the national security chief, partly because no policeman has ever wielded so much power in India. Previous incumbents in the post were Foreign Service officers.

Mr Narayanan, two years younger than the 75-year-old prime minister, was a trusted intelligence chief to three prime ministers. Indeed, the late Rajiv Gandhi, sharing a fondness for chocolates with his spymaster, was reputed to slip him an occasional eclair during key government meetings.

Mr Narayanan was pulled out of retirement when Mrs Sonia Gandhi led the Congress party to a surprise win in the 2004 polls.

Seen initially as the Gandhi family's man in the PMO, Mr Narayanan has become indispensable to Dr Singh.

When a visiting statesman recently arrived for a four-eyes lunch meeting with Dr Singh, he discovered there were four eyes already at the table - the PM had asked Mr Narayanan to sit in.

In truth, New Delhi has always had its various bureaucratic cliques.

The late Indira Gandhi, whose roots were in Jammu and Kashmir state, was blamed for surrounding herself with a Kashmiri circle with names such as Haksar, Kaul and Kao in top posts.

Despite their shared roots, the members of the Mallu mafia are actually drawn from disparate strands.

Principal Secretary Nair is from the Punjab cadre of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Foreign Secretary Menon speaks better Hindi than his native Malayalam, has a Maharashtrian wife and sings Hindustani classical music.

Nor do Malayalees always act in concert.

When foreign secretary Shyam Saran was retiring, Mr Narayanan's advice to Dr Singh was to appoint the man next in line, a Punjabi, arguing this would avoid bureaucratic heartburn.

Dr Singh, who had handpicked Mr Menon, overruled the advice.

Besides, Malayalee influence does not extend to politics.

India has two Malayalee ministers of Cabinet rank - Defence Minister A.K. Antony and Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi. Neither counts for much in the political pecking order.

Indeed, Mr Antony was thwarted a few months ago when he pressed for Commerce Secretary Pillai to be relocated to his ministry.

'The PM baulked,' says someone who speaks with Dr Singh. 'He thought one more 'mallu' in a coveted post would become a political hot potato.'

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