While in Pakistan, presidents and prime ministers have remained at loggerheads many times, in India, this clash of authority often erupts between the provinces’ governors and chief ministers.
Provincial governors under the British rule had an important role in ensuring the smooth functioning of the Raj at the local level. They acted as the eyes and ears of the viceroy. After independence, it was felt that governors, who will represent the central government, will act as a bridge between New Delhi and provinces.
But over the past 75 years, the governors have acted as agents of the party ruling the centre. The issue gets more complicated when the opposition controls the province.
While most of the constitutional positions — president, prime minister, chief minister — are all elected to office, a governor is appointed by the central government.
The recent stand-off between the Left Front-led government in the southern most state of Kerala, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Governor Arif Mohammad Khan has raised the debate about whether the position of governor is needed at all.
It may not be the first time when a governor of the state has acted against its council of ministers.
Independent Indian history is full of incidents when the government at the centre has used the governor to make the state accept its authority, but a fact that cannot be denied here is these tiffs were never so blatant and overt as they are now.
Kerala is the only Indian state ruled by the left-wing Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Left Democratic Front (LDF). Its ideology stands poles apart from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules the centre.
A difference between the central and state government over issues is not surprising, but for the state governor to engage in activities that can lead to destabilising the government and the governor’s refusal to work in accordance with the state government is unprecedented.
Since India’s independence, both the left and right-wing ideologies have fought for space in academic and university circles. Whether it is the appointment of vice-chancellors and faculty in the university or the appointment of heads of various autonomous institutions under the Ministry of Education or Ministry of Culture, the left and right have continued to wrestle for these positions. The academia belonging to the left has received the patronage of the Congress party since the Nehruvian era and it continued to dominate these spaces till a few years ago. They have always had an edge over the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its frontal organisations in universities and cultural organisations.
However, as the direction of the winds began to change after the BJP came to power in 2014, the rightist Hindu intellectuals started to openly assert themselves.
The case of Kerala
The recent incident in Kerala is yet another attempt in the series, where the centre wants to hand-pick vice chancellors for state universities and is doing so through its representative. i.e. the governor. This clash earlier manifested in the protests at India’s premium universities, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Aligarh Muslim University.
Citing a Supreme Court order, the governor who is also the chancellor of state-run universities, asked vice-chancellors of nine universities to resign on grounds of discrepancies in their appointment.
The governor’s action has ruffled more than a few feathers in Kerala, with the chief minister alleging that Khan is “acting as a tool” of the RSS which wants to appoint people of the right-wing to influence the university campus.
Like in India, in Pakistan the governor’s office is exploited to keep the rebelling state governments under check. Earlier this year, Pakistan Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah had threatened to impose the governor’s rule in Punjab, if his entry was restricted into Punjab.
Just as the president of India is the chancellor of all Central Universities, barring a few states, the governor is the chancellor of state universities. Earlier this year, the West Bengal assembly led by Trinamool Congress had passed a legislature replacing the governor with the chief minister as the chancellor of universities. It was after rounds of allegations and counter-allegations between State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and then Governor Jagdeep Dhankar over appointments in universities.
But Khan entering into an open confrontation with Vijayan and announcing his disassociation with the finance department could lead to a breakdown of the state machinery forcing the centre to impose presidential rule in the state.
A series of confrontation
“This is also one of the many tricks in BJP’s book to pull down state governments,” said a senior leader of the Communist Party of India. The BJP has in the recent past brought down state governments in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Misuse of the governor’s position by the centre is an old Congress formula. It can be argued that this is not the first time that the governor’s office has been misused by the centre. Even Jawaharlal Nehru used Article 356 to dismiss the first-ever democratically-elected Communist government of Kerala in 1959, bringing the state under president rule.
Misusing the position of the governor became more blatant when Indira Gandhi came to power. “She would often use the governor’s position to create trouble for non-Congress states. Back then, BJP and Jan Sangh would protest against the misuse of constitutional position,” said veteran journalist Parsa V. Rao.
In 1984, the Congress Party which was in power at the centre used the position of the then governor Ram Lal to bring down the NT Rama Rao’s government in Andhra Pradesh. Former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar had asked the then governor of Tamil Nadu, SS Barnala, to prepare an adverse report against the state government’s working so that the government could be dismissed. But Barnala refused to do so and so was moved out of Tamil Nadu.
Like in India, in Pakistan the governor’s office is exploited to keep the rebelling state governments under check. Earlier this year, Pakistan Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah had threatened to impose the governor’s rule in Punjab, if his entry was restricted into Punjab.
Former PM Imran Khan had threatened the Sindh government against imposing the governor rule in the province when the state government was allegedly involved in horse-trading for ousting Imran Khan’s government.
Before and after independence
When India was under the British rule, a governor could do certain acts at his discretion after consulting his ministers. But architects of the Indian constitution felt that the governor’s role and powers should be trimmed. Dr BR Ambedkar had then observed: “The governor has no function which he is required to exercise either in his discretion or his judgement. According to the principle of the Constitution, he is required to follow the advice of his ministry in all matters…”
Thus, all discretionary powers of the governor were withdrawn and the governor was directed to act on the advice of his ministers.
With the governor’s extravagant lifestyle; huge bungalows, sprawling lawns, a cavalcade of cars and hundreds of staff at his disposal, the governor’s post is a white elephant in the state exchequer. Such is the pomp and show, that after completing their tenures, many governors have often refused to vacate sprawling mansions. They had to be admonished to vacate the houses.
The post has become a post-retirement engagement for weary politicians or those officials and bureaucrats who have extended favours to the government when in service. The time has come to rethink the post’s continuation and allow the chief minister to run his state as per the peoples’ mandate to preserve the federal structure of the country.
