Commentary/Janardan Thakur

Dr Sharma would definitely earn some more kudos if he were to call the Bihar governor's bluff

Are governors behaving any differently now than they did in the past? Why, people are asking, is the Bihar governor refusing to give permission for prosecuting Laloo Prasad Yadav? Who is holding his hand?

Not long ago, when Sheila Kaul felt obliged to quit as governor, she left with the parting comment she was resigning from office 'to uphold the high principles of democracy and the dignity of the governor's office.' Which was utterly ludicrous after the way she had tried to stick to her post like a limpet. The dignity of the governor's office has been besmirched for years and it continues to be besmirched even now.

Way back in 1960, the Administrative Reforms Commission headed by M C Setalvad had observed that a governor must be a person who by his ability, character and behavior inspired respect: 'He must be able to display perception and judgement and understanding of political and social forces and on insight into human motives.... Above all he must be impartial, and a person of unquestioned integrity...'

During her long years in politics, Indira Gandhi virtually stood the recommendations on their head. Time and again she showed she had no use for governors having qualities that inspired respect. Whatever the place assigned to governor in the Constitution, Indira saw them as no more than her personal agents in various states.

She had her own criteria for choosing governors. They had to be men/women of aristocratic taste, with the right sense of colour and decor, the right table manners and so on that when she visited the state her aesthetic and social sensibilities were not hurt. Or the governors had to be consummate manipulators who could turn minorities into majorities or the other way round, depending on what was required.

In short, Tapases were welcome. Or they had to be great courtiers.

Usually they were old retainers or lackeys of the Nehru-Gandhi court who, over the years, became such political liabilities they could only be removed to cushy berths in Raj Bhavans or to embassies abroad. During his last days, Lalit Narain Mishra had been under tremendous pressure from Indira to accept a governorship. He had become too much of a liability as a minister at the Centre, and his ambitions had started getting the better of him. Mishra went and prayed at the lady's feet: "You are my devi! Please don't deprive me of your daily darshan." If only he had accepted the offer and moved to some Raj Bhavan he would probably have been alive still.

The norms set by Indira for the selection of governors were followed faithfully by her son and later by P V Narasimha Rao, who had not only been trained in the Gandhi school but had made important inputs to its curriculum. Barring some exceptions, the men/women chosen to be governors were usually discredited politicians who had made a name for themselves as polluters of public life.

Dr Chenna Reddy was often described as the 'most corrupt chief minister of India.' Even Congressmen who wallowed in corruption were 'aghast' at the enormous wealth that Dr Reddy had allegedly amassed for himself. When his corruption stank to high heavens, Indira was left with no choice but to remove him so that she could give a 'clean image' to her party in Andhra Pradesh.

And what did she do with him? Sent him off to the Raj Bhavan at Chandigarh.

When then Himachal Pradesh chief minister Ram Lal set a record in corruption and became unacceptable to Congressmen in his state, he too was rewarded with a governorship. And you would remember what games Ram Lal than played in the Raj Bhavan at Hyderabad.

Public memory is short, but surely it cannot be so short as to have forgotten the dubious circumstances in which A P Sharma and Bhishma Narain Singh were sacked from the central Cabinet. Those were the days when Indira had suffered major reverses in the south and was making desperate attempts to refurbish her government's image. Both Sharma and Singh had to be removed from the ministry. The corridor of power had hummed with stories of what their dossiers contained. And so the axe came down: they were sacrificed at the 'altar of purity.'

But then in the thinly-veiled monarchical system that prevailed, it would have been most cruel of Indira to have totally discarded such great loyalists who had stood by her in her darkest hour. Wasn't it Bhishma Narain Singh who had spent money from his own pocket (as he told people after he was sacked) to buy a bouquet for Charan Singh on behalf of Indira who then happened to be in jail? Surely it is not the way of largehearted kings and queens to forget such thoughtful acts of their courtiers. A governorship was the least that could be given to Singh.

As for A P Sharma, the moment he heard he was being bundled out of the ministry he suffered from a 'condition of the heart' and got himself moved to a hospital. Such was Sharma's pathetic condition (not physical) that Rajiv Gandhi thought it necessary to visit him in hospital. Some of the scenes witnessed during his visit were straight out of a Bombay movie: the Sharma family at Rajiv's feet, imploring him to 'save Sharmaji.' He too was given a Raj Bhavan.

There is perhaps another very good reason why governorship suits some of the men/women chosen for the job. The post gives them a constitutional shield, an immunity from being prosecuted without clearance from the President, in other words from the home ministry. Weren't Presidents supposed to be just rubber stamps? That some of the Presidents have not acted true to form is a different matter. When Narasimha Rao sought to delay Sheila Kaul's removal from the Himachal Pradesh Raj Bhavan, surely he would not have expected President Shankar Dayal Sharma to go public and make his position untenable?

Did the President have to go out of his way and say publicly that it was 'simply inconsistent with the dignity of the high office of the governor of a state and the dignity of the people of the relevant state that any governor should have to be subjected to examination or interrogation by the CBI in the context of material evidence gathered against that governor'?

Prime ministers usually expect Presidents to sign on dotted lines and when they don't they are considered 'troublesome' or 'ungrateful' or both.

Sheila Kaul, mercifully, had to go, but what about the others who are still making a mockery of their high position? Dr Sharma would definitely earn some more kudos if he were to call the Bihar governor's bluff. That would be some parting gift to the nation. Surely Dr Sharma has nothing to lose now.

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