Even by his own standards of indiscretion and polemic, Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari surprised many when he made controversial remarks on Chhatrapati Shivaji being tutored by Samarth Ramdas and apparently mocked the child marriage of the reformist couple, Jotirao and Savitribai. Constituents of the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government demanded an apology from Koshyari at the very least but, ideally, his recall by the Centre.
Governor Koshyari has had an uneasy relationship,to putit mildly, with the MVA government since he administered the oath of office in November 2019. The list of his questionable words and deeds runs long: from swearing in Bharatiya Janata Party’s Devendra Fadnavis without ascertaining majority, then repeating the oath in the wee hours, delaying Thackeray’s nomination to the legislative council, not approving names forwarded by the government to the legislative council for more than 15 months, sending back bills passed by the state legislature on flimsy grounds, holding “review meetings” with district administrators behind the government’s back, questioning Thackeray if he had turned “secular”, and more. Governor Koshyari is not alone in the gallery of governors who have acted less as constitutional heads and more as agents of the Centre or its ruling party. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar’s multiple acrimonious run-ins with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee are well documented; in a display of her trademark temper, she blocked him on a social media platform after his regular tweets attacked her government. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin crossed swords with Governor RN Ravi over the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test(NEET) Exemption Bill;the Governor returned it but the state assembly readopted it to give the state more room in admission to medical colleges. Banerjee had even suggested a meeting of non-BJP chief ministers to discuss the overreach by governors in their states.
It is clear as day light that governors in a number of non-BJP states have frequently indulged in over reachor furthering the BJP’s political agenda itself. This is certainly not a new problem in Indian polity. The late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s imperiousness inoverthrowingstategovernments thatdidnot match minds with her is legendary; Article 356 of the Constitution was the weapon she wielded through governors who were handpicked men and women with loyalty to her and the Congress. Other parties governing India adopted the strategy. The landmark verdict in the SR Bommai case was not only a relief but also laid down the margins that even powerful elected governments at the Centre should not cross.
The era of using the gubernatorial office as anagency of the Centre did not fade away. It is perhaps instructive that a strong central government with an over arching majority and a prime minister with high popularity would see this office as ameans to anend. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi's era maynot have a dubious record of using Article 356, it has adopted two tactics to keep non-BJP non-friendly state governments onthe edge: unprincipled and untrammeled use of central agencies to target politicians and others associated with these governments, and governors who do not hesitate to use the august office to be irritants at best and roadblocks at worst.
The issue of conduct and decisions of governors in non-BJP states is set to become more – not less – prickly in the coming months. The BJP helms governments in about a dozen states; themajorityof India’s states are with regional and non-BJP parties. In arecentnation wide political survey by a media house, to the extent that such surveys can be taken seriously, only one BJP chief minister–Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma–madethe list of topnine;Mamata Banerjee, Uddhav Thackeray, Pinarayi Vijayan, Naveen Patnaik and others were ahead of him. Cornered into a situation where PM Modi’s popularity remains high but is rivaled by chief ministers at the state level, expect the central government to deploy both — central agencies and gubernatorial offices — to push its political agenda.
Is it time to end the governor’s post that has become an uber-expensive retirement home for loyal party leaders? Academicians and political scientists have weighed in on the question; the jury is out, of course. We may not have to contend with the question if the Modi government can be reminded of the words of two wise men. In the Constituent Assembly debates, Dr BR Ambedkar had stated of governors: “I have no doubt in my mind that discretionary power is in no sense a negation of responsible government. It is not a general clause giving the governor power to disregard the advice of his ministers…” and Jawaharlal Nehru argued that it would be ideal if the governor was an eminent and respected name in academics, art, science and so on but “not (so) intimately connected with the local politics”.
With almost all gubernatorial appointments drawn from the political class and limited to those who pass the loyalty test, yesterday’s politicians — or shakha chiefs — are today’s governors. Then, Dhankars and Koshyaris will breach the boundaries and decorum of their office. It’s time to review the appointment structure of governors but this government is unlikely to bite the bullet.
