The Great Saga of the Highest Constitutional Office

Bengal, a state which is the land of stalwarts like Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekanand, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sri Aurbindo and many others, is all set to give us the new President. Yes you are right! I am talking about the Congress and its allies endorsed candidate Pranab Mukherjee- the son of Bengal (his services to Bengal is hardly notable) is likely to occupy the august office of President.

India has got Presidents like Rajendra Prasad, Sarvapalli Radhakrishanan, and Zakir Hussain who helped the highest constitutional office not only maintain its prestige and glory but also added great dignity to the office. At the same time it has also witnessed Presidents like Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, Giani Zail Singh and Pratibha Devi Singh Patil, who only lowered the dignity of the high office.

The president who is charged with disgracing the high office most is Fakhrudin Ali Ahmed. He was the man who timidly signed the emergency proclamation at midnight after a meeting with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, causing the virtual demise of democracy. However, it would be injustice to him to declare him the most fallible President ever. The president who stands head to head with him is Giani Zail Singh. He was unanimously nominated to be the President. But began his stint with a shameful remark, “If my leader had said me to pick up the broom and be a sweeper, I would have done that. She chose me to be the President.” He was on the brink of creating a constitutional crisis when he became hostile to the Rajiv Gandhi government and threatened to dismiss it. The president also compelled the Congress government to remove its MP KK Tewary who had alleged in the Lok Sabha that the President is providing shelter to terrorists in the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Presidents like R. Venkatraman and K.R Narayanan are accused of bringing to bear a clerk’s mindset in the highly prestigious office. K. R Narayanan also played a vital role in bringing K.G Balakrishanan in the apex court who later also served as the Chief Justice of India. And it was Narayanan who spent a couple of extra days in London after his formal visit was over- during which even the British denied to concede his presence in their capital.

With the election of Pratibha Patil for the highest constitutional office, the dignity of the office touched a new low. Her term began on a low note and is ending on a low note as well. An article of Arun Shourie in the Indian Express accusing her of mismanagement at a Cooperative Sugar factory, surfaced the moment she was nominated for the august office in 2007. Recently, an RTI application revealed that Patil’s 22 foreign trips cost 205 corers, the highest ever by a president. Now at a time when she is about to leave the office, she is being accused of ‘land grab’ in Pune which was meant for the military use.

But all this is past. The country is about to get a new President. Pranab Mukherjee is certain to be elected as the next President of India- the loyal supporter of Indira Gandhi who actively participated in her misdeeds during emergency. Pranab Mukherjee is also believed to be the originator of the slogan “India is Indira and Indira is India”, which was highly used during emergency.

It is a well-known fact that Pranab Mukherjee has been the troubleshooter and the crisis manager for the congress party and has never been far from the center of the power. His intimate relationship with the party hardly indicates that he would go against the party lines.

Given all these, only an overtly optimistic person can expect that Pranab Mukherjee, as the next President of India, would restore the lost glory of the highest constitutional office. He, like many of the former Presidents may end up becoming the puppet ‘Mahamahim’ Rashtrapatiji. Of course, the puppeteer would be Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi. After all, we are living in a political monarchy and she is the queen.