SOROOR AHMED reviews the history of our Presidents, from the time of scholar Presidents to that of politician Presidents, and says that Ms. Pratibha Patil’s election as our next President is a foregone conclusion.
Perhaps we politicised the election of President of the country even before many other posts. It happened in 1969, which subsequently led to the split in the Indian National Congress. The politics on the run-up to the 2007 Presidential election, in contrary, is likely to create crisis in the opposition National Democratic Alliance and not the ruling combination as in 1969.
If 1969 transformed the very shape of the Congress politics the 2007 Presidential election has the potential to change the very nature of the opposition politics. If Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, managed to ensure the victory of her candidate the then Vice President and Independent nominee, V.V. Giri, the opposition NDA’s Vice President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, an Independent candidate is most likely to lose as now even the Shiv Sena and Janata Dal (United) have their strong reservations about him.
If the 1969 election was marred by the personality clash and a little bit of ideological tussle, today the election has its own kind of politicking. Caste-factor, state-factor, loyalty-factor all are playing their parts. In a nutshell, it seems that we are not electing a President, but distributing tickets to members of Parliament. The Left might have been objecting to the candidature of home minister, Shivraj Patil, because of his not so good secular record, but the Communists had no problem in backing his cabinet colleague, Pranab Mukherjee. Just because Pranabda is a Bengali, the Left showed their inclination towards him; though it is an established fact that the minister of external affairs is their arch rival and bitter critic. The same Left in 2002 supported an apparently non-political personality, Captain Lakshmi Sehgal, of the erstwhile Indian National Army, against A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Whatever be their argument there is no dearth of people who still think that Sehgal’s association with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a Bengali did work also.
Similar is the approach of Shiv Sena. That it can go on to the extent of supporting a Maharashtrian lady even if she belongs to the rival camp, speaks of the parochial nature of Indian politics. If Shiv Sainiks can cross over and split the National Democratic Alliance just for the sake of what many called rubber stamp President what can they do when a Maratha, say Sharad Pawar, is tipped for the post of Prime Minister. In that situation they may even wind up their own party and join Pawar’s cabinet lock, stock and barrel.
The NDA tried to work smart by pitting Bhairon Singh Shekhawat as an Independent. Last time, during his election for the post of Vice President, Shekhawat got the votes of many Rajput MPs and MLAs belonging to the non-NDA parties. The NDA was quite hopeful of securing a victory this time too. They thus made a bid to stage a comeback. A presidential victory before the 2009 parliamentary election would have come as a big boost to their morale. But the Congress played its own Rajasthan as well as Rajput cards by fielding Pratibha Patil Shekhawat, governor of that state as the candidate.
The regional card might have been played in the past, but the caste equation was perhaps never played so brazenly in the Presidential election as now. The whole process of 2007 Presidential election has proved that there is no national level character with integrity, knowledge and political wisdom left in the country. And if a part of it is left, our political class just does not want it.
We can find fault with the Presidential elections of the past, but never before has the post been so politicised as today. We had a controversy-free first three Presidential elections in which we saw scholarly intellectuals, with political background Rajendra Prasad, Radhakrishnan and Zakir Husain reaching to the top. The election of the fourth President was politicized, but there is no doubt that V.V. Giri was a renowned Gandhian and a top trade unionist.
The bigwigs in the Congress, in a way compelled the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, to back Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, a party stalwart from Andhra Pradesh, as the candidate. Indira Gandhi, who wanted to cut the then finance minister, Morarji Desai, and leaders like Kamraj and others to size, pulled a faster one and at the final moment decided to support the then Vice President, V.V. Giri, also a Telugu speaker. Though the issue even led to the split in Congress Indira Gandhi’s candidate finally won. The then Gungi Gudia (dumb doll), as many in the party used to call her, had the final laugh and managed to silence many old Congressmen.
If the BJP wanted to do Giri with Shekhawat it was grossly mistaken. Giri had a much taller stature, a scholarly personality and a renowned trade unionist with Gandhian connection since 1914, when he was in Ireland. He served as the Union labour minister under Jawaharlal Nehru and even dared to resign on some policy differences.
Shekhawat, a former police constable, who rose to become the chief minister of Rajasthan is no match to Giri. True, he is a seasoned RSS man, but lacks the qualities to give him high stature. Besides, unlike Indira Gandhi in 1969 the BJP or NDA is not in power at the Centre, therefore, it was futile to think that they would really bring about a coup through the Presidential election.
Be it Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhawat or Mrs Pratibha Patil Shekhawat the truth is that both owe their rise to politics and loyalty to party or certain personalities. Mrs Shekhawat, though a lawyer and a non-controversial person, is relatively less known figure to head the state.
A close study of the profile of Indian Presidents would reveal that after V V Giri we had an era of pure politicians – with no other significant qualities – becoming heads of the state. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, who like Zakir Husain, died while still in office, was a cabinet minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet in 1974 before he became the President.
After his death on February 11, 1977 B D Jatti served as the Acting President for a few tumultuous months as Mrs Indira Gandhi lost the election in March. The Janata Party (it had many ex-Congressmen), which came to power, then put up the same person Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, as the candidate and this time he won.
But when Mrs Indira Gandhi returned to power, she in 1982 got her home minister Zail Singh elected as the President. Singh never shied to state that he was the President of the Gandhi family and was prepared to do what Mrs. Gandhi wanted him to do. However, it is other thing that the army action in Golden Temple and assassination of Indira Gandhi landed him in a piquant position. He then had a sort of strained relationship with Rajeev Gandhi. However, Zail Singh was succeeded by R Venkatraman and he by Shankar Dayal Sharma, both Congress leaders of some stature.
However, it was with the election of K.R. Narayanan, a Dalit from Kerala and after him A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a Muslim from Tamil Nadu that the office of President once again gained some respectability. Narayanan, who was a scholar and diplomat, had the added advantage of having acute political sense. Kalam was never of that stuff.
If Pratibha succeeds, as it is most likely, we have to assume that the era of pure-politician Presidents has arrived once again. We will now have a woman as the Supreme Commander of Land, Navy and Air Force. A section of opinion makers are happy that we at last have a woman at the top for the first time. Yes, of course. What they forget to add is that we have once again scored over the United States, where the debate is still going on over the candidature of Hillary Clinton for the next year’s election.