It is extraordinary but not surprising that one of the general secretaries of the ruling Janata Party should have sought and secured from the President, Mr Sanjiva Reddy, a categorical assurance that the latter does not intend to enter the political arena. Extraordinary because since the promulgation of the Constitution in 1950 no political leader has ever thought it necessary to seek and get such an assurance from the President of India. And not surprising because for weeks rumours have been circulating in New Delhi that the President is willing to move over to the office of the prime minister.
Mr Nanaji Deshmukh has said that he had sought the President’s reaction to reports in a section of the press that he would be willing to take over as prime minister in certain circumstances. But surely Mr Deshmukh would not have rushed to the head of state if only “a section of the press” had carried the reports in question. Apparently some of the Janata Party leaders, too, had expressed concern over observations which were being attributed to the President. Indeed, it will not be surprising if it turns out that the problem was discussed at a fairly high level among the Janata leaders and that they felt that the time had come for a “frank” discussion between the President and one of them, preferably one who was not a member of Mr Morarji Desai’s cabinet.
It is possible that the rumours have had no basis in fact and that the ladies and gentlemen, who have met or claimed to have met Mr Reddy, have misunderstood him, misquoted him, quoted him out of context or at least greatly exaggerated what he may have said to them. But it cannot be disputed that some of his public statements have lent themselves to the interpretation that he has been critical of the Prime Minister and that he feels called upon to play a more active role than that his office entitles him to under the Constitution.
REMARKS
Witness, for example, the remarks he is reported to have made in Madras on September 4. The United News of India quoted him as having said: “Nowadays the children bring down the reputations of their parents and I wish they would emulate the examples of Rajaji’s children” who “do not want to live on the name and glory of their father.” According to UNI, while paying tribute to the late Mr Kamraj at another function the same day in Madras, the President said: “Fortunately he had no son or son-in-law to spoil his name.”
The President was in all probability not influenced by the demand for inquiry into charges against Mr Kanti Desai and Mr Charan Singh’s relations and it must surely have been farthest from his intention to castigate Mr Morarji Desai on account of the alleged activities of Mr Kanti Desai. But it will be disingenuous for anyone to suggest that these observations have not been seen by millions of newspaper readers as being directed at the Prime Minister. Can there be any surprise then that the rumours regarding Mr Reddy’s alleged desire to replace Mr Desai as prime minister have found ready listeners in New Delhi and elsewhere?
Only three weeks earlier on August 10, Mr Reddy had received and addressed a group of Congress (I) MPs. They had gone to Rashtrapati Bhavan to present to him a preposterous memorandum which, in utter disregard of the limitations the Constitution imposes on the powers of the President, urged him “to take remedial action to set right the deplorable state of affairs prevailing in the country” as a result of the actions of the Janata Party. The Press Trust of India quoted the President as having appealed “to all those who were in the forefront of the freedom struggle to join hands to restore norms of conduct in public life.” And one New Delhi English-language daily quoted him as having said on that occasion: “I am aware of all that is happening in the country and my role in this situation is a delicate one” which PIT said “was to give a ‘healing touch’ and try and bring all shades of thought closer in the larger national interest.”
EFFORTS
Even if the occasion was not an appropriate one because the gentlemen approaching the President were self-acknowledged supporters of the emergency, no one can, on the face of it, take much exception to his remarks. But these happened to tie up neatly with the talk of efforts being afoot to unite Congressmen and set up a government consisting largely, if not exclusively, of Congressmen. And it was unavoidable that Mr Reddy’s remarks would [be] read in the context of the praise the Congress (I) had lavished on him in the same well-publicised memorandum.
Mr Reddy cannot be blamed if he has sought to make it out that he is a different kind of President from Mr Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed who signed the emergency proclamation before it had been endorsed by the council of ministers and who did not care to ask the then prime minister to produce credible evidence to show that the situation in the country had deteriorated to the point where it was not possible to cope with it through the normal processes or that the proclamation could not wait for a few hours to enable the ministers to meet. But he has been drawing a distinction between a President elected with the support of all parties as he was and the one elected with the support of only one party or a group of parties which may not be quite tenable. For once an individual is elected President, he is expected to rise above party politics. He is President of all Indians and not of some Indians. Indeed, even the Prime Minister and his colleagues are expected to think and act in the larger national interest and not in the interest of those who have voted for them.
That apart, two points need to be made. First, however limited and circumscribed the role allotted to the President under the Constitution a la the British monarch who, according to Bagehot has only “the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to warn”, he can be expected, indeed be called upon by the people, to perform a big and even a critical role in certain situations. But such a situation has not arisen in India.
In spite of the dissidence in the Janata Party, it has not broken up into fragments; it commands solid majority in the Lok Sabha; a vast majority of its members continues to support Mr Morarji Desai; the chances are that they will not withdraw support from him in the foreseeable future; orderly government survives whatever one’s view of its performance. All in all there is no justification for presidential intervention.
Secondly, so long as there is a party or a coalition of parties capable of commanding a majority in the lower house, of electing its leader and sustaining the government, the President must be content to play the limited role assigned to him by the Constitution. However high his personal status in the party (Dr. Rajendra Prasad), however great the respect for his learning (Dr. Radhakrishnan and Dr. Zakir Hussain) and however strong his feelings (Mr V. V. Giri) the President has no choice but to go by the advice of the council of ministers. It follows that if there is need for what is called the politics of national reconciliation, the prime minister alone can fulfil it with the active assistance of his cabinet and party colleagues. The President cannot provide the “healing touch,” however qualified. Mr Nehru led the search for a national consensus on policy issues, not Dr. Prasad and Dr. Radhakrishnan.
SYSTEM
It is legitimate to take the view that the party system is in decay in the country, that without a viable party system it is not possible to make a success of parliamentary form of government and that India will have to go in for the presidential system if it is to have a viable and purposeful executive authority at the Centre. A number of eminent individuals take such a view despite their experience of the emergency when for all practical purposes Mrs Gandhi operated a presidential system of government. But so long as we practise the parliamentary form of government – and there is not the slightest possibility of the country opting for the presidential one so long as the present one does not break down and is not seen by the people to have broken down – the role of the President must remain limited. Indeed, he can be most effective when he goes out of his way to efface himself as an active politician. For in that event alone can he establish with the prime minister the kind of relations which can enable him to exercise “the right to be consulted” without provoking an open confrontation to the detriment of the system and the country. Such a relationship between President and the prime minister must inevitably be an extremely delicate one. It can easily be upset if the prime minister is not sufficiently deferential to the President and the President not sufficiently cognisant of the fact that the executive authority rests in the prime minister and not in him.
The Times of India, 13 September 1978