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The lows of the Presidential contest

Vidya Subrahmaniam

The debate on the relative merits of candidates has been uninformed and partisan, bordering on the abusive on occasion.

In a few days from now, Rashtrapati Bhavan will have a new occupant — most likely a woman. Yet so unedifying has been the run-up to the presidential election that few will dare mention this milestone, much less celebrate it. When the United Progressive Alliance presented Pratibha Patil as its presidential candidate, the incumbent first citizen had heartily welcomed it. “Fantastic,” he had gushed. The reaction was considered typical of the man — poet ic, quixotic, almost other-worldly. That a week later A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was signalling an interest in fighting Ms. Patil for an extended term on Raisina hill is an irony too large to miss.

But this is not the only low point of this election — an election marked by acrimony, confusion, petty showmanship, and mud-slinging. The debate on the relative merits of candidates has been uninformed and partisan, bordering on the abusive with the participants sparing no one, not even the late K.R. Narayanan. At the National Democratic Alliance’s daily press briefing, a reporter questioned Sushma Swaraj on the logic of seeking a second term for President Kalam when the Alliance had refused to extend the same courtesy to President Narayanan. In 2002, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had bluntly told K.R. Narayanan not even to consider a second term. Five years later, Ms. Swaraj rubbed it in. “Don’t compare the two men,” she yelled back at the reporter.

With the remarkable K.R. Narayanan, indisputably one of our best Presidents, so rudely dismissed, it followed that much worse was in store for Ms. Patil. The UPA-Left’s nominee has been viciously attacked for her alleged “low stature” — not just by Ms. Swaraj & Co. but by media celebrities intent on destroying her credentials for the only reason that they had never heard of her or of her work.

“Who is Pratibha Patil?” Over the past week, commentators and politicians have tossed this question about, barely able to conceal their contempt for a woman so understated that we have to turn to her CV for enlightenment. The one-page statement is much like Ms. Patil herself — refreshingly matter-of-fact and unembroidered. Yet even the bare facts impress: a practising lawyer before she joined politics, five consecutive terms as MLA, a clutch of portfolios in the Maharashtra Government, member of the 10th Lok Sabha, deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, and Governor of Rajasthan. All this topped by untrumpeted, constructive social work: engineering college for rural students, hostel for working women, development fund and cooperative bank for economically depressed women, schools for the poor and the disabled, and so on.

Just in case the picture this presents is of a dour elder citizen, there is more — details missing in her CV, details unknown to media circles in the big metros but recalled with pride in her home town and electoral constituency. Ms. Patil was a champion table-tennis player and quite the toast of MJ college in Jalgaon winning a beauty title in 1962, years before such contests would become the staple of newspaper pullouts. In 1965, three years after she won her first Assembly seat, she married educator Devisingh Shekhawat and became Pratibha Devisingh Patil — decades before the hyphenated surname became a feminist statement. As Ms. Patil quietly climbed the political ladder, her husband willingly took a backseat to her.

Yet this exceptional career woman is apparently worth nothing in an environment that so easily allows PR and networking skills to mask the lack of real talent. Today the acid test for a seeker of public office is not what she has achieved but how visible and how well-connected she is. “Who do you know?” is a question that precedes “what do you know?” Conversely, anyone outside the charmed circle of the opinion making class is a “nobody.”

Ms. Patil’s choice has been faulted on a host of counts. She was not her party’s first choice, not even its second or third choice but was a compromise candidate agreed upon for the reason that she offended no one. She was a Congress loyalist who stuck by Indira Gandhi in the aftermath of her 1977 defeat. But her worst offence surely was that she lacked a dazzling public profile. The 72-year-old Ms. Patil may have held an array of posts in a career spanning 45 years, never losing an election in all this time, her strength of character evident in the way she wielded the office of Governor — she returned the Rajasthan Religious Freedom Bill 2006 but this act was unaccompanied by fuss or fanfare — but for Ms. Swaraj she could never compare with Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, “a leader of immense public stature.” Mr. Shekhawat became Vice-President on the strength of his three stints as Chief Minister of Rajasthan. And as his followers would only too gladly admit, his many sterling qualities include a mastery of ‘tod-phod rajneeti’ (manipulative politics). That the Vice-President aspires to be President without the necessary numbers in the electoral college speaks to this skill. Who else but Mr. Shekhawat can convert adversity to advantage?

Unfortunately, politics has long been reduced to the here and now. Ms. Patil cannot hold a candle to Mr. Shekhawat. And President Kalam is a super hero who must seek re-election because incessant e-mails and instant polls have decreed so. The President’s political backers feign outrage at the Congress’ refusal to grant him a second term. Yet in 2002, he was as much a compromise candidate as Ms. Patil is today because of dissensions within the NDA — the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “own man” P.C. Alexander not finding favour with the allies, and Vice-President Krishan Kant agreeable to all but the BJP. A long impasse and much wrangling later, Dr. Kalam came in by the same principle. He had an illustrious career but more than that he offended no one.

Ms. Patil’s detractors have sought to strip her of her dignity because she was not the UPA’s “natural choice.” She has been savaged for daring to view her candidature as an honour for women. This was symbolism at its worst, fumed the critics. It was a case of an unheard of nobody over-reading the importance of her own undeserved elevation. “What has she done for women?” screamed a page-3 diva known best for her pulp fiction. She might find a quick visit to Maharashtra educative. Yet the point of Ms. Patil’s possible promotion to President is not about what it will accomplish for the toiling women of this country. Appointments to high office have a symbolism not necessarily connected to the uplift of the masses. Should Hillary Clinton become United States President, it is unlikely commentators will deny the symbolism of that victory or run her down saying American women had nothing to gain by her taking office.

Mayawati and K.R. Narayanan each created history when assuming the office of Chief Minister and President respectively. That the appointments did not instantly uplift the Dalit masses cannot and should not take away from the rich symbolism of the achievements. Dr. Kalam’s elevation to President — in the backdrop of the Gujarat pogrom — afforded the NDA a chance to refurbish its tarnished secular credentials.

In their eagerness to cash in on President Kalam’s popularity, his backers have done him enormous harm. They goaded a near-consensus President — in 2002, he was supported by all barring the Left — to consider entering the fray as a factional candidate. The President has mercifully pulled back from that perilous path but his quoted “willingness” to contest has done the damage — to the man and to his office. If only for a few days, the detached savant showed glimpses of ambition.

Compare this with K.R. Narayanan who announced his exit the minute the NDA proposed Dr. Kalam’s name. Just days ago, Ms. Swaraj summarily dismissed President Narayanan, saying he couldn’t be compared with Dr. Kalam. It might have been a Freudian slip by the BJP spokesperson. In office, President Narayanan was a towering figure, twice returning for reconsideration questionable Union Cabinet decisions. He stood his ground on tricky issues — refusing to confer the Bharat Ratna on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and speaking his mind on the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. He called it a “grave crisis of society and the nation” and wrote to Mr. Vajpayee seeking Army intervention to control the killings. The letter, written in his last days in office, ensured that he would be denied a second term.

Dr. Kalam has been called the People’s President. True, his simplicity has won him a huge fan following. Yet he signed a late night proclamation allowing the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly which the Supreme Court held to be illegal and “a subversion of the Constitution.” Thanks to him, a portrait of Savarkar hangs in the Central hall of Parliament — right opposite the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi in whose assassination he was once implicated.

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