BackGovernors are political animals
The role of the governor of an Indian state is clearly political even if his office is constitutional
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No sooner had Kamla Beniwal been sacked as the governor of Mizoram on 6 August, than a chorus of protests started about how an 87-year-old woman had been victimized. Much of it was political. Beniwal was a Congress appointee. She had repeated run-ins with Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat. Her transfer from Gujarat to Mizoram in early July and her dismissal two months before her tenure ended has been described as political. The removal of other governors appointed by the previous government has also been described in similar terms.
The description of these acts is correct. What is incomprehensible is the moral whining that has accompanied these sackings. The truth is that governors are political appointees and liable to be removed when a new government comes to power. The role of the governor of an Indian state is clearly political even if his office is constitutional. That is a contradiction that lies at the heart of most controversies about the appointment, role and removal of governors. No government in independent India has tried to change that.
Constitutionally, the governor is a head of state. He does not wield direct executive power except in special circumstances for example in states where normal political processes are not possible. That does not subtract from his political role: from sending reports about the breakdown of constitutional machinery in states to signing laws into existence.
Beniwal, for example, acted in a political way when she did not give her assent to Bills passed by the Gujarat assembly. Her role in the controversy around the appointment of the Lokayukta in the state, too, was political. It is hard to believe that she acted in her personal wisdom and that she did not have the approval of the Union government which was led by the Congress party when these events occurred. It was natural that a government led by Narendra Modi would not like her and would ask her to go. Did the Union government act capriciously? No, it merely acted politically as has every other government since independence.
A more sophisticated variant of the moral posturing is the argument about developing “norms" that will ensure that governors are not sacked by new governments. Judicially, this has led to confusion. In a 2010 judgment, (B.P. Singhal vs Union of India and others), five judges of the Supreme Court held that a governor could not be removed “on the ground that he is out of sync with the policies and ideologies of the Union government or the party in power at the Centre" (p56 of the judgment). But at the same time, the judgment held that no reason need be assigned for the discontinuation of the pleasure (of the President) resulting in removal but the power could not be exercised in an arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable manner. (p55).
Practically, it is impossible to make a distinction between these two acts: the removal of any governor by the President takes place on the recommendations of the Union cabinet and if no reason need be assigned for the discontinuance of the President’s pleasure, all that the judgment does is to open the doors for litigation and judicial intervention in a political subject.
Did the judges err? No. The problem is more fundamental: There cannot be a judicial remedy to a political issue. Judicial remedies have served India well for policy problems created by the executive. But this cannot be extended usefully to purely political acts.
The reason for the confused debate and the less than useful prescriptions on the subject is the confusion between political and moral acts. The more the two are mixed, the harder it will be to get to a solution—if one is needed at all.
The German political theorist Carl Schmitt had something interesting to say in this context: “The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy." (p27, The Concept of the Political, University of Chicago Press 2007). The idea is ferocious but is it far from the truth? It isn’t. The sooner Indians realize this, the better they will be able to come to term with realities and end vacuous debates.
Postscript: Soon after he resigned as the last British governor of Bihar, Sir Hugh Dow left a note for his successor in which he highlighted many problems that define Indian states today. Dow mentioned internal divisions, ineffective ministers, shocking state of police affairs, agrarian and industrial labour troubles and above all, a “parochial point of view more interested in getting extra votes". What he did not anticipate was the Indian governors would exhibit the very same deficiencies and poor human quality that he attributed to provincial ministers. All the more reason that appointment of governors should focus on quality of people appointed and not on spurious legal and Constitutional arguments that have no meaning in such situations. For an astute study of governors then, see the paper by Rakesh Ankit “The Last Sahibs: Governors in British India, March-August 1947", Economic and Political Weekly, 2 August, p122—129.
Siddharth Singh is Editor (Views) at Mint. Reluctant Duelist will take stock of matters economic, political and strategic—in India and elsewhere—every fortnight.
Comments are welcome at siddharth.s@livemint.com. To read Siddharth Singh’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/reluctantduelist
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