Let's have Raj Bhavans minus Rajas

Kudos to Braj Mohan Ram for performing a service to India's constitutional democracy: telling the truth. Odisha's governor-designate has declared he intends to strengthen BJP while in office and help garner votes for the party. This has caused predictable outrage. Apparently, the 'scandal' lies not in governors being partisan but in one being indiscreet enough to admit it.

India's governors are constitutionally obliged to rise above party politics. In practice, Raj Bhavans have regularly served as retirement homes for party loyalists, rehab centres for defeated politicians and, occasionally, forward operating bases for the Centre. Their occupants have demonstrated remarkable enthusiasm for constitutional interpretation whenever an opposition party governs the state. The same constitutional provisions become considerably less interesting when political colours match. Ram has merely removed the fig leaf from a rather conspicuous anatomy.

The sensible response is not another sermon on gubernatorial impartiality. It is to abolish the office through constitutional reform. Its essential functions - formal assent, constitutional oversight and managing government formation - can be redistributed among elected institutions and judicial mechanisms, with clear deadlines and safeguards. Centre-state disputes deserve transparent, enforceable rules, not discretionary interventions by 'presidential' appointees whose political sympathies are frequently public knowledge. There is an additional dividend. Raj Bhavans, liberated from their gubernatorial tenants, could become museums, galleries, libraries, cultural centres or even public arcades. Ram may yet strengthen BJP. More usefully, he has just strengthened the case for abolishing his own job.