The real travesty: On the Governor of Tamil Nadu and the Governor’s address

A Governor who profoundly disagrees with the State government should not stay in office

The Governor’s customary address to the legislature (the group of people in a country or part of a country who have the power to make and change laws) at the first session of every year is being increasingly politicised. More often than not, those responsible for such unseemly controversies overshadowing (to cause someone or something to seem less important or less happy) the solemn occasion are the incumbents in Raj Bhavan. In the latest instance (a particular situation, event, or fact, especially an example of something that happens generally), Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi has expressed his inability (lack of ability to do something) to read out the address prepared by the DMK-run government, citing what he termed “misleading (causing someone to believe something that is not true) claims and facts” in numerous passages. Reading them out, he claimed, would have made the Governor’s address “a constitutional travesty”. Compounding (something consisting of two or more different parts) this constitutional mischief (damage or harm, or an act that causes damage or harm) with a partisan claim, he sought to make much of the fact that the national anthem is played only at the end of the address and not at the beginning also. Anyone who understands the Governor’s role in a parliamentary democracy will know that it is the one declining to read out the address prepared by an elected government who reduces the address to a travesty. Governments are run by parties that contest elections on a political platform, and it is only to be expected that they would seek to trumpet (to make people aware of something important) their achievements, real or exaggerated (seeming larger, more important, better, or worse than it really is), in policy statements. It is the role of the political opposition and the people to judge the content of the address, and not that of the Governor.

A simple test to ascertain the tenability of Mr. Ravi’s claim that he declined to read out the customary (usual) address on factual and moral grounds is to raise the question whether either the President or a Governor in a Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled State would ever do so. He did not spell out what exactly the misleading or factually wrong points were, but it is not constitutionally sustainable to claim that the Governor’s address should contain no criticism of the Centre or make no policy pronouncements against the Centre’s policies. However, his point that the Speaker should not have launched a tirade against him after reading out the Tamil version of the Governor’s prepared speech is justified. Such conduct by constitutional functionaries detract (to make something seem less valuable or less deserving of admiration than it really is) from the Assembly’s dignity. The larger issue is still the propensity (the fact that someone is likely to behave in a particular way, especially a bad way) of Governors to act as political agents of the ruling party at the Centre. It is an unfortunate feature of India’s constitutional system that the country is never short of grey eminences (the state of being famous, respected, or important) eager to occupy gubernatorial (relating to a governor) office, but once appointed, they are equally eager to enter the political thicket. It is as if they believe that their duty is to obstruct and undermine State governments run by political adversaries (an enemy). The real travesty is not in a formal address containing questionable claims, but in a Governor who disagrees profoundly with its policy while remaining in office.

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