ELECTING India’s president posed serious problems only once, in 1969, leading to a split in the ruling party. But in selecting one, whatever their political hue, the ruling dispensation must seek political consolidation and compatibility with the all-powerful prime minister.
In selecting Ram Nath Kovind, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for long considered a party of the upper caste Hindus, has reached out to Dalits, the country’s oppressed caste. The constitution reserves 16 per cent jobs, education and representation in legislatures. They count between 200 and 250 million in a population of 1.3 billion. Kovind is of the Koli ethnic group.
On July 17, he is slated to be elected second low-caste President of India after K. R. Narayanan (1997-2002). Whether such elevations have improved the Dalits’ lot is debatable. But then, democracy is, and should be, about empowerment of the deprived.
Through Kovind, the BJP clearly aims to widen its social base, dividing the opposition parties and forcing them to field another Dalit in Meira Kumar, a former Lok Sabha Speaker (2009-14).
Through her, 17 opposition parties have challenged the right-wing BJP’s Dalit credentials and have forced an “ideological” fight.
Meira can, however, only offer a token contest as the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) commands two-thirds votes.
An electoral college comprising all members of parliament and state legislators will elect Kovind, 71, for a five-year term. The same college will also elect a new vice-president when Mohammed Hamid Ansari remits office in August.
With that, the BJP, already on a rollercoaster, will for the first time capture all four top constitutional offices.
India’s constitution provides a mix of the Westminster parliamentary form that gives the prime minister overwhelming powers over the Head of State. Benign and ceremonial though, the president is designated Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is the king/queen maker after parliamentary election. The vice-president presides over Rajya Sabha, the upper house.
India is undoubtedly a “prime minister-o-cracy”. In Kovind, PM Narendra Modi will have a constitutional boss, who is unlikely to challenge or criticise him or his government. Both belong to Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor that is widely believed to have approved, if not proposed, Kovind.
Modi will leave behind veiled criticism from outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee who, although using language appropriate to the highest office, has repeatedly called for assuaging “intolerance” among sections of the public and an “inclusive” approach essential for a diverse society that India is.
These observations were ostensibly made in the context of targeting of religious minorities, frequent violence by vigilante groups and social turmoil over diktats, some of them turned into law, on what people should eat and dress and a “we-and-you” campaign promoting hyper-nationalism — in sum a majoritarian agenda, a charge the Modi government vehemently denies.
Mukherjee’s approach was similar to Narayanan, who expressed distress for the victims of and obliquely criticised sectarian violence, killing about a thousand Muslims in 2002 in Gujarat under then-chief minister Modi’s watch.
In troubled times, the president is thus the conscience-keeper of the nation, but one who can act only within the ambit of the Constitution.
Both Mukherjee and Ansari have sought to hold the mirror to the Modi government and the BJP in the last three years. Ansari’s reference to treatment of religious minorities earned him much trolling in the social media because he belongs to one of them.
Presidential criticism even when he/she belongs to the same political party as the prime minister, and sending back legislations passed by parliament, have been the way Indian democratic system has evolved. Publicly debated, these have, however, never sought to subvert the constitutional arrangement.
Although slated to be the first BJP president, Kovind will shed his political affiliation the day he takes office. He has a humble background. A diligent student, he cracked the civil services examination, but chose to practise law. He is a family man with wife, a son and a daughter.
Politically, he is a low-profile “insider”, who once headed the party’s Dalit wing. Despite his long years in New Delhi, he is unknown to the capital’s political, legal and power elite.
Twice elected to the Rajya Sabha, he raised issues ranging from banning adult content on television channels to introducing Dalit patriarch BR Ambedkar’s photo on Rupees 1000 currency notes (demonetised last November).
His last role was another ceremonial post, as Bihar state’s Governor.
Past records of occupants of the sprawling Rashtrapati Bhavan, the vice-regal house built in the colonial era, are indeed interesting and important.
For one, no president has got a second term except the first, Rajendra Prasad. A political equal and a fellow freedom fighter of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, he got a second term despite Nehru’s reservations.
Two attempts by opposition parties to garner support for a second term for the wildly popular APJ Abdul Kalam did not succeed. Mukherjee blocked any such move and avoided controversy by announcing his retirement.
Assessed as one who would have been a great prime minister, but never made it, and easily the most experienced administrator to become India’s president, he will move to an official residence in New Delhi to complete his political memoirs.
India can easily claim to have fared better than most others who swear by democracy by electing a woman, at least three members of religious minorities that constitute barely 14 per cent of the population, two legal luminaries, a philosopher, a scientist — each from different regions and language groups.
The writer, NST’s New Delhi correspondent, is the president of the Commonwealth Journalists Association 2016-2018 and a Consultant with ‘Power Politics’ monthly magazine