Governor, your pleasure is immaterial; what matters is people’s will

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan has declared that the state’s Finance Minister KN Balagopal has ceased to enjoy his pleasure and, therefore, expects Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to dismiss him — or words to that effect. 

This would have been enjoyable had it been part of a political skit of the kind that fills Kerala’s news channels. But this is no contrived attempt at humour. Governor Khan is dead serious. He takes his pleasure very seriously.

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State governments are sworn in by the governor, all right, but not because it pleases the governor to do so. The chief minister and his council of ministers derive the right, authority and duty to form the government, because the people of the state vote their party or coalition of parties to a majority in the legislature. Whether this pleases or displeases the governor is a matter to be sorted out between the incumbent and his medical advisor.

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It has no bearing on the discharge of his duty to invite the leader of the group that enjoys a majority in the legislature to form the next government, and to swear that leader in as chief minister, and the people he or she recommends as ministers.

If the government’s performance is below par, it is for the opposition in the legislature to point it out and demand a course correction. The governor’s pleasure or pain is immaterial in this context. If the government’s conduct is terrible enough for it to lose democratic legitimacy, it is for the opposition to bring a motion of no confidence against the government. This might send the governor into raptures or give him dyspepsia, but that is wholly irrelevant.

Delusion of grandeur

If a minister is to be dropped, it is the chief minister who decides that. For the governor to presume he has the authority to do that is a delusion of grandeur.

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For a political leader to compare the state of affairs in his state with that in another state is not to weaken the integrity or unity of the country. The very fact that India has several states, multiple languages, multiple faiths, multiple ethnicities and cultural variety is what makes the slogan Unity in Diversity so compelling.

Bihar is very poor. Bihar and UP have low levels of social development, resulting in relatively high total fertility rates and faster population growth. Academics debate the correlation between low levels of social development and democratic maturity. Does it weaken national unity to say this? When the Finance Commission allocates funds for backward districts and backward states, is the commission weakening national unity? Will the governor be displeased at such temerity?

Where Khan stood out

Arif Mohammad Khan had earned the nation’s respect when he resigned from Rajiv Gandhi’s council of ministers in protest against pandering to Muslim fundamentalism over a widow, Shah Bano, being awarded maintenance from her former husband. Few politicians have displayed such courage of conviction. He cut short a promising political career in the Congress, and became a political malcontent who could not stay for long in any of the other political parties he serially joined and abandoned, before finally taking refuge in the BJP.

Khan justifies his present political address on the ground that this is the only place that allows him to take on Muslim fundamentalism. While taking on Muslim fundamentalism, does Khan fail to see the attacks on democracy the BJP has been carrying out across the country — the lynchings in the name of the cow, the anti-Muslim bent of the love jihad campaign, the selective bulldozing of the homes of protesters, the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act, the buying of MLAs to topple elected governments and replace them with BJP ones, the intimidation of Muslims around the country by the proponents of Hindutva, the pressure on the media that has had India’s ranking to plunge in global indices of press freedom and democracy?

Does it please him to carry on with this double vision, in which he sees clearly, and calls out Muslim fundamentalism, but cannot, or refuses to, see the anti-democratic agenda being pursued by the BJP?

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Khan has one legitimate course of action, if he believes the government of Kerala is functioning in violation of the Constitution – he can recommend dismissal of the government and imposition of President’s rule. Short of that, the gubernatorial pleasure or displeasure is a personal feeling and should be kept to the confines of the governor’s residence.

High-handedness of governors

It had been the high-handedness of governors in several states on several occasions that had persuaded several state governments and political parties to recommend, to the Sarkaria Commission on Centre-State relations, severe restrictions on the institution of the governor and even, the abolition of the office itself.

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In a democracy, the people are the sovereign, whose pleasure or displeasure matters. Political has-beens who are accommodated in Raj Bhavans might have feelings but would be well-advised to keep them to themselves, and not try and make them into instrumentalities of illusory power.

(TK Arun is a senior journalist based in Delhi)

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