Pretty much unpresidented: Pranab Mukherjee spoke his mind, democratised Rashtrapati Bhavan

President Pranab Mukherjee will exit the Rashtrapati Bhavan later this month, leaving it a great deal better off than when he entered it five years ago. He is India’s 13th president, but only the fifth to have been a consummate politician before being elevated to the highest office.

The other four members of this select group are, arguably, Rajendra Prasad, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, Giani Zail Singh and R Venkataraman. But there was little that Mukherjee or other politicians could do with their political acumen while functioning as the president — real authority is vested in the prime minister, as the head of the executive government, and the president is duty bound to articulate the policies of the executive of the time.

Yet, Pranab babu has spoken his mind on a few occasions, speaking out against intolerance and dysfunctional Parliament sessions and for political accommodation, upholding democratic and constitutional values and conventions that he felt were being transgressed. In having to preside over a political executive led by a party different from the one that put him in office, Mukherjee is hardly alone.

Presidents Post Emergency
In fact, every president starting with Sanjiva Reddy — who took office in February 1977, a month or so before Indira Gandhi lifted Emergency and held elections that threw her out of office — has had to deal with one or more prime ministers not quite to their political liking, with the exception of Pratibha Patil, whose inconsequential tenure started and ended with the same Congress prime minister in office.

Of these, Zail Singh alone belonged to the same party as did the prime minister, with whom he failed to see eye to eye. Rajiv Gandhi had no time for old-time party leaders like Zail Singh and paid the price for it, as he stood isolated and defenceless against charges of corruption. In other words, seven out of India’s 13 presidents have performed constitutional duties, mouthing policies for which they had no real heart. Sanjiva Reddy had to see his leader Indira Gandhi being given rough treatment by the Janata Party government headed by Morarji Desai.

But he then had the pleasure of swearing her in as prime minister in 1980. Zail Singh handed over charge to R Venkataraman, a key figure in Indira Gandhi’s political team in 1987. He swore in VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar as prime ministers of short-lived governments, before appointing his comrade-in-arms in Indira Gandhi’s inner circle, PV Narasimha Rao, as head of the government in 1991.Shankar Dayal Sharma, who succeeded Venkataraman, was a loyal Congressman, who declined to lead the Congress government in 1991 and gave Rao his chance to make history.

He had to swear in Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prime minister for 13 days, before inviting HD Deve Gowda to head a coalition government that collapsed in two years. Sharma’s successor KR Narayanan, although a diplomat in his professional life, had a long Congress lineage, but had to appoint Vajpayee as prime minister, after the brief government of IK Gujral collapsed, giving way to fresh elections.

Narayanan was president when the 2002 Gujarat riots took place. His pregnant silence on the development and belated indications of displeasure perhaps played a role in the BJP choosing APJ Abdul Kalam to succeed him. Kalam then had to inaugurate the first term of the UPA government, appointing Manmohan Singh as prime minister. Pratibha Patil gave way to Mukherjee in 2012, and he read out the Modi government’s inaugural address to a joint session of Parliament.

Rashtrapati & the Bhavan
Mukherjee was an energetic president. He was very active on the front of external relations, having known most world leaders in his capacity as a senior minister of the Indian government. He democratised the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He built museums that displayed the treasure buried in its Tosha Khana and elsewhere in its cavernous chambers, and threw these open to the public.

He restored and preserved broken parts of the historical building, got its furniture and paintings catalogued and numbered. Rooms and halls that had fallen into disuse and disrepair were rebuilt and gleamed again, with wood polish and aesthetic lighting. Pranab Mukherjee got 13 books written about the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the most notable being Abode Under the Dome, which chronicled the visits to this august building of most leaders of the world in the decades since Independence, offering a history of not just India¡¦s international relations but of geopolitics in general, as leaders of the first, second and the third worlds wooed India.

His political savvy enabled Mukherjee to become the president, if not the prime minister as his fellow Indira loyalist, Rao, had. He upheld the Constitution in letter and spirit, as much as a President of India can. We can count on him to maintain the dignity of the office he had held, once he becomes ex-president. But we can also trust him to not go gentle into that good night.