Will Governors Now Serve as 'Coordinators of Central Agencies’?

The two-day conference of governors this time was much more than a ritual. If the official releases are an indication – that is the only source of information these days – Raj Bhavans will hereafter be given a wide range of tasks.

Under our constitutional system, the President and governors have a well-defined role. In the past, whenever any transgression occurred, the judiciary or public opinion would intervene. First President Rajendra Prasad had begun the practice of a weekly public audience at the Rashtrapati Bhavan grounds, where an underground CPI leader also met him. 

But Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru discreetly advised him to cease the practice as it was beyond the role assigned to the President, and Prasad stopped.

Gubernatorial activism was earlier defined by such acts as mala fide dismissal of a state government and reporting of the “collapse of law and order” in the respective states, before the S.R. Bommai judgement of 1994 decisively put an end to such misadventures.

In 2006, the Supreme Court came down heavily on Governor Buta Singh who had recommended dissolution of the Bihar Assembly the previous year after elections threw up a hung House. The ensuing upheaval is reported to have made then President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam consider resigning.

Without repeating the old blunders, Modi-Shah have chosen their own smart moves to co-opt governors. Two years back, this writer in these columns had narrated how governors in Opposition-ruled states were turned into storm troopers of the Centre.

Now, the governors’ conference held on August 2 and 3 has shed light on the new role being assigned to them. We will never know the decisions arrived at in the conference and the six group meetings on specific proposals. But according to reports, everyone, including President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, called for an activist role for governors.

Official agenda papers, as quoted by the media, said the Centre wanted the governors to be more proactive on social media, to connect with the public and share their views on issues where there are differences between the Centre and the states.  Another suggestion is that governors regularly hold open forums and round table discussions with community leaders and engage directly with citizens.

The most controversial proposal is that governors “improve coordination between various central agencies and organisations so that they don’t work in silos. Raj Bhavan can help ensure coordination between these organisations”. (Ibid)

A report quoting the President said: “For the smooth functioning of democracy, it is crucial that central agencies work with better coordination across all states. Governors should think about how they… can promote this coordination.”

On the second day of the conference, six working groups separately discussed the issues raised by the President, the Prime Minister and others.

There is no way of finding out whether the governors will hereafter coordinate the working of the central agencies. None of the official releases, such as those issued by the PIB or on Presidentofindia.gov.in, shed light on this. President Murmu only revealed that the working groups of governors came up with “valuable ideas and suggestions”.

In the present system, the media has no avenue of information unless officials want to share it. Which are the “central agencies” whose working the governor will coordinate? Will they include investigating agencies like the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI? This calls for clarification.

All those who addressed the conference, including the President and the Prime Minister, spoke of an activist role for governors.

Besides ensuring the coordination of central agencies, Murmu said they could contribute to higher education reform as chancellors of universities, encourage people associated with the “MY Bharat” campaign, strengthen the ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ campaign, promote natural farming and contribute to efforts to tackle climate change.

We do not know in what context Prime Minister Modi urged the governors to make Raj Bhavans an ideal model of governance and train the staff “for effective functioning”.

At least two Raj Bhavans – Kolkata and Bhubaneswar – have been in the news for the wrong reasons.

In Bhubaneswar, a Raj Bhavan employee was allegedly physically assaulted by the governor’s son for not sending a luxury car to pick him up.

In Kolkata, a former contractual employee at Raj Bhavan has filed a molestation complaint against governor C.V. Ananda Bose. She moved the Supreme Court last month. In May, the state police submitted a report on another sexual harassment complaint against the governor, filed by a classical dancer. The governor later instructed Raj Bhavan employees to ignore police inquiries.

We do not know whether the Prime Minister had these complaints on his mind when he said Raj Bhavans should be made a model of governance, or whether such issues came up for discussion at the conference.

Amit Shah asked the governors to visit Vibrant Bharat villages and Aspirational Districts to instil confidence among people and give a fillip to the development work. Vice-President Dhankhar told them to make people aware of the Centre’s welfare schemes. (https://indianexpress.com/article/india/be-bridge-between-centre-president-says-prioritise-poor-9490934/).

After the conference, West Bengal governor Ananda Bose told PTI that the concept of passive governors will soon be history. Asserting that governors were not ‘rubber stamps’, he said ‘a new style, a new grammar, a new chemistry between the elected representatives and the governor’ were in the offing.

While the governors were meeting, saner advice came from Supreme Court’s Justice B.V. Nagarathna, who is scheduled to become the Chief Justice of India in 2027. In her keynote address at a conference hosted by the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, she said: “The governing idea is to place the governor above party politics, above factions, and not subject him to the party affairs.” Regretting that “some governors in India are playing a role where they ought not to”, she said: “The spirit of constitutional statesmanship, not partisan brinkmanship, should be the mantra.”

She is right. During the past few years, governors of at least half-a-dozen Opposition-ruled states have been playing partisan politics.

West Bengal’s Ananda Bose, Tamil Nadu’s C.T Ravi and Kerala’s Arif Muhammad Khan have repeatedly been accused by the state governments of using available instruments to harass them. One of these instruments is the governor’s statutory position as chancellor of universities, where they overreach and meddle in the working of the higher education institutions. Another preferred method is to indefinitely withhold bills passed by the state Assemblies. In some cases, they refuse to swear in elected MLAs. Very often, the Supreme Court has had to intervene to set things right.

Consider the chaos in higher education. In West Bengal, the apex court had to appoint a special panel to settle the problems. A similar tussle has been seen in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Some recent cases of gubernatorial activism include Kerala governor Arif Mohammad Khan staging dharnas and protests, the Supreme Court’s rap to Tamil Nadu governor R.N. Ravi for refusing to swear in K. Ponmudi as minister and Punjab governor refusing to endorse the two-day Assembly session and declaring it illegal.

Recently, West Bengal governor Ananda Bose had threatened two newly elected MLAs with a fine of Rs 500 a day if they attend the Assembly session, saying they were ‘illegally’ sworn in. Bose had also filed a defamation case against chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

In many states, governors sit on bills passed by the state Assemblies. Some governors have kept bills for 10 to 23 months without giving assent or rejecting them, forcing the Supreme Court to step in to restore some order.

Last year, on an appeal by the Punjab government, the apex court passed strictures against an “unelected head of state” indefinitely withholding the bills. This had happened in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana and West Bengal.

Karnataka’s Thawarchand Gehlot is the latest to join the activist governors. Earlier this month, he issued a show-cause notice to chief minister Siddaramaiah, asking why action should not be taken against him in the alleged Muda scam.

The chief minister said the Centre was misusing the Raj Bhavan to destabilise his government, and accused the governor of functioning as its “puppet”. Denying involvement in any scam, he asked the governor to withdraw the letter. “I have no role. Where is my role?” Siddaramaiah said.