Every anniversary of a President’s tenure does not mark a milestone, but the ending of year one of President Pranab Mukherjee’s time in office on Thursday, it can be said, has done a lot of good to the Rashtrapati’s office. Foremost, the dignity of that high office has been reclaimed.
Mr Mukherjee has given every indication so far that he is in the best tradition of our Presidents. Some of the stalwarts who have occupied the exalted office have had their individual strengths which have been unique. Rajendra Prasad, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Zakir Husain fall in this bracket, although the first President’s differences with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on certain policy issues are a matter of record. (But since both were dyed-in-the-wool constitutionalists and upholders of the highest social and political decorum, their varying perceptions carried no negative impact.)
In the second noteworthy category are K.R. Narayanan and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who were citizens of the first rank — deemed domain experts and noted for their great concern for India’s place in the world — before they acceded to the presidency. Mr Mukherjee can be said to carry some of the flavour of both these classes of our first citizens. He is still to be politically tested, say in deciding who is to be called first to try to form the government in a precarious coalition situation. But he has the experience to stick to the Constitution and the rulebook.
As a tough, seasoned and distinguished ruling party politician who could have been Prime Minister, Mr Mukherjee’s election to the top office was not without its share of speculation, gossip, or challenge from within our multi-party parliamentary system. But none of this has mattered a whit the way the President has gone about his duties and responsibilities, navigating his way around the government, the Opposition parties and the key institutions with a light touch.
Mr Mukherjee has done what is right, and led the republic from the front, but in an understated way. He has been a keen watcher of the political scene at a time of great contention (the President is reputed to be an avid follower of developments through the media), but from afar, scrupulously. This has been Mr Mukherjee’s great strength.
At a more mundane level, he has taken an active interest in the renovation and rehabilitation of the substantial Rashtrapati Bhavan library which has now been opened to scholars, the children’s school on those premises and housing for the subordinate staff. At the level of symbolism, Mr Mukherjee has shown himself to be a thorough-going democrat by urging the country to avoid adding high-sounding honorifics to his name. This is the way forward.