The days of gentlemanly politics are over. It is no longer possible to take the stand that the President of the republic should be kept out of political controversies. He has been fully drawn into one. Janata party leadership may not be justified in accusing Mr. Sanjiva Reddy of “pre-planned conspiracy” and making his decision not to invite Mr. Jagjivan Ram to try and form a government a major plank of its election campaign. But a controversy has arisen regarding the manner in which Mr. Reddy has handled the situation arising out of Mr. Charan Singh’s self-confessed inability to secure a vote of confidence from the Lok Sabha and advice to the President that the lower house of parliament be dissolved and fresh elections ordered. And this controversy cannot be disposed of by a condemnation of the Janata leadership. It may have done “a major damage to the democratic framework”, as Mr. CM Stephen has said on behalf of the Congress (I). Mr. Stephen may also be justified in taking the view that by dissolving the Lok Sabha, the President has given evidence of his boldness, wisdom and commitment to the spirit of the constitution. But when did the Congress (1) or its supreme leader, Mrs. Gandhi, get converted to the proposition that the President should show “boldness” in any situation? For all that we know, Mrs. Gandhi as Prime Minister had taken the stand that the President had no active role to play, not even the generally accepted role for the British monarch to “caution, warn and advise” the Prime Minister to pursue a certain course of action in preference to another. During the emergency she had even pushed through parliament an amendment which said explicitly that the President shall be bound by the advice of the Prime Minister.
Apparently Mrs. Gandhi has found it necessary to revise her views on the role of the President. For, in his capacity as one of her principal spokesmen, Mr. Stephen has not only commended Mr. Reddy’s decision to dissolve the Lok Sabha but has said that the President is entitled to dismiss the present caretaker government headed by Mr. Charan Singh and appoint another consisting of generally acceptable persons who preferably should not be politicians. In plain terms, this means that Mrs. Gandhi is now prepared to accept what would amount to President’s rule at the centre. It is possible that she is guided by the exigencies of her present requirement. Mr. Stephen has said: “We are of the emphatic view (sic) that there cannot be fair and free, elections with the illegal government in authority”. This statement may or may not have been made for propaganda purposes. It may or may not reflect a genuine apprehension on Mrs. Gandhi’s part. But she is raising an issue that has long-term implications.
If on Mr. Stephen’s own statement, the President can appoint another set of ministers, he can also keep on the present team. Its “legality” – title to remain in office – cannot, therefore, be questioned. If the President’s pleasure alone is material in the present situation neither Mr. Charan Singh’s failure to secure a vote of confidence from the Lok Sabha nor the unpopularity of the Congress (S) as reflected in the “record of forfeiture of deposits it has established in a series of by-elections” (to quote Mr. Stephen) is relevant. Thus, if Mrs. Gandhi is entitled to take the view that the group of politicians headed by Mr. Charan Singh and Mr. YB Chavan cannot be trusted to preside over a fair and free election, what is there to prevent the opposition parties in future to insist on a caretaker government consisting of non-political figures to organise an election and who, pray, is non-political? Journalists or academicians, judges or retired judges? One chief justice of the Supreme Court offered himself for election to the Presidency when he was still in office. Others have not hesitated to accept on retirement offices of profit as gifts from the government of the day.
The unquestioned assumption so far has been that there cannot be President’s rule at the centre. This assumption is now being challenged for whatever reason by Mrs. Gandhi and her party. They are now saying that the President is not only entitled but obliged to pick up another team of ministers to manage the country’s affairs till the elections next December. By implication they are also saying that if the forthcoming poll does not give a clear majority to a party or a stable coalition of parties, the arrangement can continue. That apart, we have now in New Delhi a government which owes its existence to the pleasure of the President and is therefore beholden to him.For, regardless of whether or not Mr. Reddy has been justified in coming to the conclusion that Mr. Jagjivan Ram could not give the country a stable government, it was open to him to invite the latter to try and form a ministry. And irrespective of whether or not Mr. Ram was in a position to mobilize the necessary support in the Lok Sabha, he could have stayed on in the office of Prime Minister till the next poll and perhaps even longer if the election did not give a party or a coalition of parties a majority in the house. The Congress (I) is, of course, pushing the argument much farther when it says that the President can, if he so wishes, appoint a government of “generally acceptable” individuals and urges him to do so. But independently of that, the existing situation itself calls for a clear definition of the role of the President in various contingencies.
This issue has been evaded since independence It was side-tracked by the framers of the constitution who took it for granted that it was possible to transplant the British party system in India and that the country would always have a head of state who would be content to serve as a symbol of the state, a figurehead, to use a popular jargon. Dr. Rajendra Prasad raised the question perhaps because he was troubled by it. But, Mr. Nehru snubbed him and he had a distinguished Attorney-general to support him in his view that the Indian President was like the British crown. In retrospect it is evident the Mr. Nehru was ill-advised to brush aside the issue. The problem regarding the role of the President began to break surface when Mr. VV Giri moved into Rashtrapati Bhavan in 1969 and started telling his visitors did not owe his election to the then Prime Minister and that he was not going to be a rubber-stamp President as if his distinguished predecessors deserved to be so described. After his retirement he put on record his differences with Mrs. Gandhi on, for example, her handling of the railway strike in 1974. But the problem was manageable because Mrs. Gandhi was a strong Prime Minister and she was assured of the necessary two-third majority in both houses of parliament. Mr. Reddy, too regards himself as representative of the people of India in view of his uncontested election and not a nominee of the then Prime Minister, Mr. Morarji Desai, and the then ruling party, the Janata. He has taken an activist view of his role and his relations with Mr. Desai, it is common knowledge, have been less than cordial. But it is not just a question of the personality of the President or his background. Dr. Radhakrishnan was an academician of long standing and owed his presidentship to Mr. Nehru. But when the latter’s fortunes declined in 1962, the former was not averse to criticizing him fairly openly. That too, is however, a relatively small problem. The critic issue is how do we manage the system when we do not have astable majority party or coalition in the Lok Sabha? This question can no longer be baulked.
The Times of India, 25 August 1979