Pendekanti Venkatasubbaiah is a forgotten name in Indian politics – like the lesser-known victor in the Battle of Waterloo i.e., Duke of Wellington, P Venkatasubbaiah was the controversial Governor of Karnataka in the landmark S.R. Bommai vs. Union of India case that besets the Centre-State relationship.
Ironically, it is P Venkatasubbaiah’s own vivisected state of Telangana (from the erstwhile joint state of Andhra Pradesh) and the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala that are experiencing extreme ‘Southern Discomfort’ with the gubernatorial appointees and their purported partisanship.
If true, then it constitutionally militates against the mandated apolitical conduct of their office that they individually swore to, before assuming the mantle of the ‘conscience-keeper’ of the respective state.
Governor vs Government Tiff Intensifies
The much-bandied quest for an opposition-mukt India could have led to this unprecedented dissonance in the Centre-State relationship and fronting the same on behalf of the ruling dispensation in the relatively ‘Un-mukt’ (opposition-ruled) region of the South States, are the appointed Governors.
It would be naïve to say that this is a new trend. It can be safely said that no government since independence would have had the magnanimity of appointing any gubernatorial appointee who had differed with them, overtly.
Equally, it would be untrue to say that almost all of them had demonstrated obsequiousness or blatant partisanship. Some did, many didn’t. The same could be said of almost all other Constitutional (read, apolitical offices) like the President or other governmental institutions like the Bureaucracy, Armed Forces etc.
However, despite the historically, less-than-satisfactory standards of uprightness in the governance DNA since independence – arguably the ensuing perception of enfeeblement, misuse, and ‘His Master's Voice’ phenomenon of almost all institutions, is disconcerting.
Centre vs State Gulf: A Throwback to Indira Gandhi Era?
To understand the historical distrust between the Centre and the opposition-ruled state or UT, important to understand the infamous Damocles Sword of Article 356. This constitutional provision empowers the Governor or Lt Governor to potentially dissolve the State or UT assembly (and bring it under ‘Governor's Rule’ or central oversight) on account of its perceived inability to conduct business as per the Constitutional requirements.
This is clearly a subjective realm, hence susceptible to misuse, should a small-spirited dispensation want to assert itself over opposition-ruled state.
Even the doyen of Indian democracy— Jawaharlal Nehru could not escape the temptation of starting this trend with the dismissal of the Namboodiripad Government of Kerala in 1959.
However, the ‘crown of misuse’ is undoubtedly reserved for the ultra-ambitious Indira Gandhi, who invoked Article 356 for a record 50 times! This along with her declaration of Emergency explains the perils of dictatorial and authoritarian instincts that can diminish the Indian experiment with democracy.
Do Gubernatorial Appointees Mask As Centre’s Puppets?
Post the Indira Gandhi era, the invocation of Article 356 lessened substantially and the 90’s and thereafter, with the likes of Narsimha Rao, Deve Gowda, Inder Gujral, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh did usher in a semblance of relative large-heartedness and accommodation in Indian politics, irrespective of their partisan persuasions.
However, the last eight years have seen a resurgence of stridency, intolerance and disempowerment of various constitutional institutions, that harks back to the Indira Gandhi era – even if Article 356 is not the foremost signature means, of the said assertion.
The usually reserved and traditionally restraint address of the Raj Bhawan/Niwas had started earning the sobriquet of ‘Old Age Home’ for supposedly rehabilitating old war horses who had been put out to pastures, figuratively!
While the opposition ranks did often rake up the rote issue of unhelpful gubernatorial appointees – the expression of the same was still couched in loaded insinuations by the elected politicos and consequential ‘silences’ from the gubernatorial appointees.
Not anymore, as the gloves are off in the ‘new normal’ of Indian politics. The level and language of accusations and the accompanying discourse hits a new low almost every day, and the retort from the Raj Bhawan/Niwas is as shrill, inelegant, and undignified as it comes from the politicians.
One of the most public and ugly spats between a gubernatorial appointee and the Chief Minister of a state did not result in the powers-that-be (read, dispensation of day) insist on traditional sobriety or reminding the ‘Conscience Keeper of the State’ to be above the level of professional politicians, but willy-nilly encouraged him to match the vitriol, step-by-step soon, the said Gubernatorial appointee was rewarded with an ascendancy to the second highest office of the land!
If ever there was an inadvertent behavioural template for the incumbents of the Raj Bhawan/Niwas, it was spelt out amply clearly with this career progression. The gubernatorial appointees in the South (where the last realistic bastion of opposition leadership in the states still survives) have seemingly adhered to that clarion call.
This is not to suggest that the elected governments in the South have conducted themselves with perceptibly higher standards than the gubernatorial outpouring – but then, offices like those of the President or Governors usually behooved themselves to be above petty comments, partisanship, and small-spiritedness, that is playing out today. It is an equal match-for-match battle – the gubernatorial retorts are mired in unbelievably personalised, acerbic, and political overtones.
Despite all the tumult of coalition politics and the intrigues that it naturally generates, the fact that Presidents like KR Narayanan or APJ Abdul Kalam were both appointed by political preferences of the dispensation then (UPA & NDA respectively), no one could accuse them of partisanship or lowering the dignity of the office.
Today the eco-system, culture and the political environment is such that to expect constitutional offices to act with neutrality may be difficult, if not impossible. Many of the despicable malpractices and leniencies of making and breaking State governments (read, horse-trading of elected members) and the societal morass and digressions have happened under the watch of many ostensible ‘conscience-keepers’, of respective territories.
As one of the Ministers from the south lamented, “It's very unseemly for people sitting in the office of Governor to start espousing philosophical views about things that are beyond the constitution or have their own opinion about how society ought to be run” and then added, “Those are things you can do as street-level politicians”.
While this is obviously a one-sided view of the politician concerned in the ensuing dissonance, the issue of authoritarianism resulting in lowering of standards or politicisation of the constitutional offices (and of the institutions of checks-and-balances), as was the case decades ago, is undeniable.
(The author is a Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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