The Hindu : A significant Presidential visit

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 12, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

A significant Presidential visit

By K.K. Katyal

The President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's decision to choose Gujarat for his first visit outside the Capital within three weeks of his assuming office has evoked unusual interest in the ruling alliance, among other political parties and elsewhere. For good reasons. True, he took into account his attachment to Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati ashram but there were other factors as well.

Gujarat was recently the scene of the worst communal riots after Independence and as such the concern for the victims and their plight could not but have weighed with him. This was evident from the press release issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan to the effect that the President ``will use the opportunity to learn personally about the rehabilitation measures undertaken by the Gujarat Government and non-government organisations in the wake of recent disturbances.''

Though a constitutional head, the President need not seek the Prime Minister's advice for travels within the country. At times, his visits may convey a political message, which may not be palatable to the government of the day.

It is not known whether before taking the decision the President conveyed his thinking to the Government. He may have mentioned it to the Prime Minister and even if the latter was not happy he could not have given any such indication to Dr. Kalam. That would have sent a wrong signal. In any case, both the Central and the State Governments concerned come in the picture, once the Presidential programme is finalised.

There are clear signs of consternation in the BJP camp, though its leaders put up a brave face, trying hard to hide their unease. The Opposition derived comfort from the President's decision and said so publicly. The BJP spokespersons confined their comments to the formal — that the President has the right to go anywhere in the country and choose his destinations — and blamed the Opposition for seeking to politicise the visit. The discussion, if not the controversy, will continue but what form it will take depends on what he observes (assuming that the State authorities do not try to convert it into a conducted tour) and how he reacts.

The Gujarat trip, however, is significant. One, it provides another pointer that Dr. Kalam will be guided by his judgment, especially in the face of the sensitive situation and thus corrects the misperception that having been nominated by the BJP-led combine, he may defer to its leaders, whatever the circumstances. Two, it shifts the focus back to the present-day reality of Gujarat, which was sought to be shoved under the carpet by influential persons in New Delhi and Ahmedabad. Coming as it does in the wake of the eye-opening visit of the Chief Election Commissioner and his colleagues, Dr. Kalam's presence in Gujarat would help project the true picture of the State, removing the cobwebs of lies, spread by responsible functionaries of the BJP.

There were occasions in the past when presidential trips to sensitive areas were not liked by the Government, the Prime Minister of the day in particular. In the case of the first President, Rajendra Prasad, and the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, such cases led to friction. To say this is not to suggest that Dr. Kalam's Gujarat trip could lead to strain in his dealings with the Government. Any such conclusion will be erroneous. On the basis of the evidence available so far, Dr. Kalam could be depended upon to be correct in his functioning within the parameters of the Constitution even while maintaining independence of judgment.

Among the many occasions on which the Prasad-Nehru friction came to the fore was the case in 1950 when the President's decision to go to Somnath was opposed by the Prime Minister. Their clash became widely known. An inside account of such episodes was given by a veteran editor, the late Durga Das — known for his deep insight into the political goings-on — in his book, `Curzen to Nehru and After'. Here is one sample: "It was not a secret to knowledgeable people in Delhi that Nehru looked upon Prasad as a `revivalist'. Nehru's rift with Prasad began in mid-30s when he, along with Patel, C.R. (C. Rajagopalachari) and Kriplani, disowned Nehru's creed of socialism. It took a sharp turn when in 1950, Prasad decided to visit Kutch for the ceremonies, connected with the reconstruction of the historic Somnath temple, destroyed and looted in the 10th century by Mahmud of Ghazni, a northern invader from across the Khyber Pass. Nehru opposed the visit on the ground that it was not politic for the head of a secular state to associate himself with ``religious revivalism'' of this kind. Prasad did not agree and pointed to the significance of Somnath `as the symbol of national resistance to an invader', adding `I believe in my religion. I cannot cut myself away from it.' In his anger at Prasad's `defiance' of his wishes, Nehru told the Information Ministry not to issue the speech of Prasad at the ceremony as an official handout. On another occasion, Nehru resented Prasad's decision to go to Bombay to attend Patel's funeral."

In the eighties too, the President's travel became the subject of disagreement with the Prime Minister. On June 8, 1984, a day after the Operation Blue Star, the President, Zail Singh, wanted to visit Amritsar to see the condition of the Golden Temple. The then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, did not like the idea — she sought to assure him that the damage was not extensive. The President, however, insisted but, because of the short notice, travelled by an Indian Airlines flight.

Three weeks later, he again went there in his plane along with a media party. It was through his intervention that the Army was withdrawn from the temple, which was restored to the SGPC. The Government was unhappy over the press reports that the President has apologised to the head priest.

That, of course, was not correct. As I quoted Zail Singh then in a despatch, he had put it thus: "I said to myself `Hey prabhu, all this had to happen when I was pradhan (President). I seek your forgiveness.'' The controversy ended but not the reverberations.

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