The President of India - From Figurehead to Token?

For long there has been an impression among many that the President of India has always been a figurehead with all actual power being concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister and his council of ministers. This is true to an extent. However the current presidential election has brought into focus the importance of a President in especially the current political scenario of India. When fractured verdicts have become more common than before the President holds the prerogative of inviting who he thinks can form the government. Also I am currently reading Turning Points by APJ Abdul Kalam. This further shows how a President can play an active role.

However our Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces seems to be increasingly becoming a token. Why was Pratibha Patil made the President? One reason was that she was pliable and not at all likely to do anything controversial or inimical to the interests of the ruling authorities. It is another matter that her post-retirement home (which was to have been constructed on Army land), her foreign trips and of late her pardoning spree have made her anything but controversial. However probably the most important reason was that she was a woman. And not only a woman, but the first woman President. When KR Narayanan was made the President there was a lot of noise made about a Dalit having become the President, never mind the millions of Dalits facing persecution and oppression, the failure of successive governments to improve their plight via reservation or otherwise.

Today we have a politician in Pranab Mukherjee who has all the essential qualifications to be the next President. But no, PA Sangma will not hand it to him on a platter. He wants a tribal to be the next President. The opposition, sniffing a different front to attack the government pounced on the opportunity. I wonder when we will move ahead of these tokenisms and re-elect a person of Abdul Kalam's stature unanimously!

Moving on, Time magazine has dubbed our PM an underachiever. I would be quite interested to see how the government and the Congress react to this. This is something that people in the country are well aware. The Time article only serves to show that outside India also the PM is losing his veneer of respectability. Of what use are power, fame or intellect if you cannot exercise or utilize them?

A Manmohan encore? Unlikely

Manmohan Singh (MMS) has taken responsibility of the Finance Ministry (FM), probably leaving P Chidambaram (PC) one disappointed guy. There are many who expect MMS to do an encore of his 1991 act when he shook the Indian economy out of its slumber. However this seems hardly likely this time round. There are multiple commentators who have expressed the view that this time round MMS does not have a PV Narasimha Rao to back him up. He has Sonia Gandhi who is the power behind the throne. Sonia Gandhi's NAC for instance seems to be acting as a separate cabinet. There were some points made with respect to the proposed legislation on land acquisition and rehabilitation by a Parliamentary Standing Committee. It seems that post these there were discussions internal to the NAC and with Rahul Gandhi. What is the sanctity of the Standing Committee in this scenario? Had the proposals been rejected by the Cabinet it would have been one matter. However here we have a body which is unelected and extra-constitutional. Sonia Gandhi seems more interested in maintaining all subsidies and her pet projects like the MGNREGA and the Food Security Act, irrespective of the impact on our economy. India today is facing its highest current account deficit (CAD) in 20 years. India has not been able to fully capitalize on the weak Rupee to boost exports. One reason is probably the weak external demand due to sluggish growth or contraction abroad. The CAD is also being affected as a weak Rupee also increases the cost of our imports. 

It is time that the government woke up and did something before we face another 1991-like situation. The government keeps making all the right noises about reforms and requirements of the economy - whether it be FDI in infrastructure or in the retail sector. However when the PM is not the actual decision maker implementing anything becomes difficult. We have ministers booing the international rating agencies (the fact that their credibility is under question post the sub-prime crisis is a different story). We have a minister asking Lakshmi Mittal  not to defame India abroad. We have Pranab Mukherjee, who by the way seems all set to become the next President, who has been saying that the government will take steps. We never get to know what these steps exactly are. 

Moving on, India seems to be making some progress in investigating various terrorist attacks. Jundal or Zabiuddin or whatever his name is has been brought back to India. Now another operative called Fasih will probably be brought back soon. However the media seems to be getting overly zealous in reporting. In fact Jundal's arrest was supposed to have been kept a secret. Also everyday we seem to be getting updates about the investigation. Do the media personnel realize that these are matters related to national security? That their reports will serve to alert other operatives and can potentially give them enough prior notice to escape the law? There should be some self-restraint that has to be practised by our media. Also the government should investigate who it is that is leaking these reports to the media. Further we know Pakistan is a slippery customer as it is. Give them proof of their complicity and they will give 10 reasons to escape responsibility however hollow they might sound. Hence secrecy becomes all the more important.