(Dr. Shashi Tharoor, a two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram and the former Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development, is the author of 14 books, including, most recently, Pax Indica: India and the World of the 21st Century.)
The reported desire of the NDA Government to elicit the resignations of several UPA-appointed Governors prompts a number of interesting questions. Predictably, UPA supporters have raised the issue of constitutional propriety (and a non-UPA critic, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, has called it "politically unethical and constitutionally incorrect,") while NDA supporters have cited precedent, not least pointing to a similar action by the UPA in removing four NDA-appointed Governors in 2004. The Samajwadi Party's Naresh Aggarwal, meanwhile, has alleged the replacement of Governors is the first step in an RSS agenda to "saffronize" the country's institutions. The battle lines are being drawn over an issue that ought to be, ideally, beyond the realm of contention.
First, let's get the blame game out of the way. If we go back far enough, the practice of turfing out Governors appointed by the defeated Government started in 1977, when the victorious Janata Party defenestrated a number of Indira Gandhi appointees. Changes of government have often seen a recurrence of the practice by all sides, though it is also true that many governments have left Governors appointed by their predecessors in place. But what is happening today has happened before.
However, what is different this time is that since the last round of gubernatorial musical chairs in 2004 (when Haryana's Babu Parmanand, Uttar Pradesh's Vishnu Kant Shastri, Goa's Kidar Nath Sahani and Gujarat's Kailashpati Mishra were replaced by the UPA government), the Supreme Court has weighed in.
Earlier decisions had been justified (though justifications had not earlier been deemed necessary) by a principle advanced in October 1980, when Tamil Nadu Governor Prabhudas Patwari was dismissed on the basis of the argument that Governors serve at the President's "pleasure" under Article 156 (1). At the time, given the precedent of 1977, it was generally accepted that the Prime Minister of the day could dismiss any Governor for political reasons, and without giving any explanation, since the PM alone decided when the President would grant or withdraw his "pleasure".
But in 2010 the Supreme Court differed, concluding, on a petition moved by one of the Governors dismissed in 2004, that the government cannot arbitrarily transfer appointed Governors without 'compelling' reasons. It declared: "Nor can he be removed on the ground that the Union government has lost confidence in him. It follows, therefore, that a change in government at the Centre is not a ground for removal of governors holding office to make way for others favoured by the new government."
What reasons could the government advance that would be so compelling as to pass the Supreme Court's test? The BJP today is making the same argument that the UPA did before the Supreme Court in 2004 - that a Governor appointed by a defeated Government would have a different view of national policy than the new Government, giving rise to conflict between the Governor's views and the Government's.
It is on this basis that UP Governor B.L. Joshi has already resigned; Rajasthan Governor Margaret Alva, Kerala Governor Sheila Dikshit, Governor of Nagaland Ashwani Kumar, West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan, Maharashtra Governor K. Sankaranarayanan, Assam Governor J.B. Patnaik, Goa Governor B.N. Wanchoo and Karnataka Governor H.R. Bharadwaj are said to be in the firing line.
But this argument had explicitly been rejected by the Supreme Court, which wanted evidence of such conflict to be cited before a Governor was dismissed or even transferred. It is safe to assume that the Modi government would consider such a requirement to provide evidence an inadmissible interference in its executive prerogatives. Yet one could also make the counter-argument that the very same principle could, by the same logic, be extended to a President of India elected under the previous dispensation, yet no government has dared suggest the President should leave office when "his" government loses an election. Any conflict between the President's views and the government's simply has to be resolved in favour of the latter; that is what our democracy requires. Why can't Governors be told that, whoever appointed them, they must now follow the directives of the new Government? Surely that would end the issue of any potential conflict?
But the truth is that this really isn't about a conflict of principles or policies at all; it's really all about jobs -- jobs for "our" people rather than "theirs". Various defeated or superannuated BJP leaders need to be accommodated in comfortable sinecures, and it galls them to see the Congress Party's favourites enjoying the perks of palatial Raj Bhavans around the country while they languish in semi-retirement, itching to be appointed. So when Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad calls the NDA's decision "arbitrary and capricious," using the Supreme Court's words, the fact is he's right. It's about emptying chairs for BJP people to occupy - nothing more and nothing less.
Azad found the removal of Governors to be "against the very grain of democratic traditions and constitutional propriety". If taken forward, he warned, the move would be "fraught with serious repercussions and have a debilitating impact on our constitutional democracy". So what can we do to ensure we don't go through the same problems after every election?
There are two alternatives. The first is to insulate the office of Governor from politicization altogether, by decreeing that anyone appointed Governor must renounce primary membership of any political party, be ineligible for future appointment as office-bearer of any political party, and be disqualified from election or appointment to any post, bar that of President or Vice-President of India. That would end the spectacle of politicians taking a breather in some Raj Bhavan before returning to the electoral fray for their parties, and so conducting themselves in office with an eye on their own political future. Their lifelong allegiances would not disappear overnight, but they would be empowered, and expected, to transcend them.
The second alternative is the more radical one: to abolish the post of Governor altogether, as a colonial relic that democratic India can dispense with. Except in the increasingly rare resort to President's rule, the Governor has little of substance to do, and his few substantive and mainly ceremonial tasks could easily be divided between the Chief Minister and the Chief Justice of the state.
But that would mean depriving the ruling party of 29 comfortably-provisioned freebie positions to hand out to its loyal supporters. And what are the odds of that happening?
So it seems we're stuck with Governors. Time for all of us, including the BJP government, to learn to live with them.
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