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Oh Governor!
Oh Governor!
Swati Deb
Arunachal Pradesh Governor J P Rajkhowa has joined the club of other controversial governors in North East - Romesh Bhandari, Loknath Mishra, M M Thomas and O N Shrivastava. The episode has revived debate on whether the post of Governor should be abolished? This bizarre development has also put a question mark on the hyped ‘cooperative federalism’ – a major pledge made by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Arunachal Pradesh political crisis and especially in the context of constitutional powers of a state assembly Speaker and the Governor has now reached Supreme Court. On January 14, 2016, the apex court referred to a Constitution bench all concerned petitions arising out of certain orders passed by the Gauhati High Court in the ongoing political battle in Arunachal Pradesh. A bench comprising Justices,
J. S. Khehar and C Nagappan said the matters pertained to constitutional provisions on the rights of the Governor, the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker. All these need to be decided by a larger bench, judges said.
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That J.P. Rajkhowa is a BJP appointee and his role possibly backing Congress rebels in the on-going dissidence activity in Arunachal Pradesh against Chief Minister, Nabam Tuki has raised speculation that the constitutional position was being used to topple the Congress government.
A known pro-Chief Minister, Nabam Tuki loyalist, the assembly Speaker Nabam Rebia was “allegedly removed by 14 rebel Congress and BJP MLAs” from the post of Speaker. During the hearing in the Supreme Court, the counsels for the state assembly deputy speaker and the Governor Rajkhowa agreed with the suggestion of the apex court bench that the matter should be heard by a five-judge Constitution bench. The moment the bench said it would refer the matter to a larger bench, a battery of senior lawyers, including F S Nariman, Kapil Sibal and Harish Salve, representing various
parties in the matters, rushed to the court of the Chief Justice T S Thakur and sought setting up of the Constitution bench on an urgent basis. Appreciating that this was a “sensitive” issue and needed to be decided at the earliest, the Chief Justice of India assured of an early decision.
But the entire episode is more than a mere litigation (or even a set of litigation cases) and it has actually revived all debates about the powers and the utility of a post of Governor.
The BJP state unit president Tai Tagak has already said, “The recent political drama in Arunachal Pradesh presented the people of the state in poor light”. Defection is a menace in the politics of Northeastern states. If such unscrupulous defections of the law makers continue, the states certainly cannot project the good image of the region as a whole. But political defection is a lasting menace in the politics of Northeastern states and is often summed up in a local maxim: when New Delhi shivers, Northeastern states sneezes!
This implies the moment Congress assumes political authority in the centre – most if not all state governments turn Congress. Similarly they change colour when non-Congress governments wrest power in Delhi.
Therefore the region has several stalwarts – who kept on changing their political colours.
In Arunachal Pradesh itself – despite being longest serving Congress Chief Minister, the one-time powerful Gegong Apang had quit his parent party in 1996 and formed a regional party and yet again joined BJP at a later stage. In 2004 after Manmohan Singh-led UPA took over reins in New Delhi, it took weeks if not days for Apang to return to Congress. He again joined BJP on the eve of Lok Sabha Elections in 2014.
S C Jamir in Nagaland – has adapted to all caps – Congress and a regional outfit UDF. Jamir, once a Parliamentary secretary under Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, had become Deputy Chief Minister in Nagaland under regional dispensation led by Vizol. He was also deputy Railway Minister under Indira Gandhi.
There are many such leaders including the likes of Mukut Mithi, Hokishe Sema and so on and even veteran P A Sangma has had his innings of being a party hopper.
With regard to gubernatorial post of Governors and the abuse of central authority vis-à-vis the states – one needs to cite the instances of 1992-93 when the P V Narasimha Rao did the exemplary case of high handedness when post 6 December “demolition”, as many as four BJP governments – UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh were dismissed.
In 2005 during Manmohan Singh’s regime, the Goa Chief Minister Manohor Parrikar (BJP) – now Defence Minister - was dismissed by Governor S C Jamir “within minutes” the Chief Minister had won the trial of strength in the floor of the House. Incidentally in 1990, Jamir, then Nagaland Chief Minister, was himself dismissed by the Governor M M Thomas after 12 ruling Congress legislators defected from the Congress camp.
Governor, the Late M.M. Thomas during the
V.P. Singh regime had even declined to meet two AICC observers Rajesh Pilot and S S Ahluwalia on the argument that the views of Congress MPs were not required on a political situation in Nagaland.
In the past besides M.M. Thomas – who was later dubbed by Nagaland Congress as “misa misi” (a local slang) Thomas – former Governors like Romesh Bhandari in Tripura and O N Shrivastava in Manipur also had made news.
If these were under Congress, under Narendra Modi dispensation too the bizarre ‘Mizoram experience’ about shuttling Governors was a good trigger to spark off the debate on the utility of the institution of Governors itself. There was a jinx as in an unprecedented manner in little over last 2 months, Mizoram in 2014 has had four Governors, something of a record. It started with reshuffle of Governors, the Modi government wanted to make in order to pave the way for some resignation and create vacant slots for some of its own old guards who needed to be provided with ‘loaves and fishes’ of BJP coming to power after political hibernation from 2004 to 2014.
On July 6, the then Mizoram Purushothaman was transferred to Nagaland, others who came and went by included Kamla Beniwal, V K Duggal and then former Maharashtra Governor K Shankaranarayan.
“We were not surprised. The ‘subversion’ of the Constitution and Governor’s office is nothing new. The Congress has done it in the past and now the BJP. The so called ‘Congress-ization’ of BJP cannot be complete without the saffron party learning the art of using and abusing the offices of Governors,” senior JD(U) MP Sharad Yadav told Eastern Panorama.
The constitution of India, he explains, has clearly assigned specific roles and jurisdictions for the centre, states and Governors. The Parliament is supreme in enacting laws while the Supreme Court - that is the judiciary - decides whether a law enacted by Parliament and state legislatures is right. The Article 368 of the Constitution has given unbridled powers to Parliament – that is the central government to enact laws while Article 356-357 allows the federal government in the Centre ‘the power’ to dismiss the state government(s) or dissolve a state assembly or both.
Here lies the root of the controversies. CPI leader D Raja says some of these laws are viewed as a collective device for an ‘authoritarian centre’ to curtail the autonomy of the states. The communist leaders even up to these days recall how veteran Marxist EMS Nampoodripad was against the Governors.
In another southern state, Andhra Pradesh, versatile N.T. Rama Rao was also a victim.
The famous Keshavanand Bharati judgement of the Supreme Court has, however, held that Parliament has the powers to enact new laws and amend the Constitution but it cannot destroy the basic structure of Indian constitution.
The proponents of centre-states relationship maintain in no uncertain term that, however, number of times, the centre has acted arbitrarily and summarily dismissed state governments and dissolved the state assemblies. Most of the time – albeit these were for pure political motives of the ruling dispensation in New Delhi.
The issue of centre-state relationship is best defined in the structural set up vis-à-vis the office of Governors – who is supposed to act as ‘eyes and ears’ of the President of the Republic. The illustrious EMS Namboodiripad blasted at the institution of Governors itself and had described it as a major ‘irritant’ in centre-states relationship. “The Governor as the watchdog of the centre is an institution which cuts at the very root of the state autonomy in federal India,” he had said.
P. Upendra, a former TDP leader, and a Minister in V.P. Singh government had said, “A time may come when the institution of the Governor itself may be dispensed with”.
In fact, there is little to dispute that unlike the United States – which has a real sense of a federal system of governance – Indian constitution has always given an edge to the centre. For example, the Article 360 empowers the President of India (defacto the central government) to “interfere” or intervene in a state administration on the grounds of a threat to the “financial stability” or credit of India. The Article 356 to suspend or dissolve a state assembly remains an issue. Moreover there are Articles 200 and 201 those empower the Governor to reserve bills passed by the state assembly for the President’s assent.
The Governors in some states like in Jammu and Kashmir and Northeastern states enjoy some special powers vis-s-vis the elected state governments on the pretext of law and order situation and national security.
Generally, the central government has forced the Governors to act as ‘appointed stooges’ of the centre.
In this context, the illustration of former Nagaland Governor M M Thomas can be cited when in 1992 – his reluctance to suspend the state Chief Secretary S Ahluwalia on the charges of corruption – had instead brought in the “dismissal” of the Governor himself by the Narasimha Rao government.
“I declined to sign on the dotted lines given to me by the Union Home Ministry,” Thomas had later complained.
