The chairman of the drafting committee DR. B.R Ambedkar added Article 74 in the constitution which sets the guidelines and powers of President of India with PM as his boss. The position came as a replacement of British Monarch as Indian ceremonial head of State. Caricatured as the ‘rubber stamp’ or ‘nominal head’ of the state, the President of India comes alive in its true colours only at the time emergency or at best, meekly refraining from endorsing a decision-and that, too, only for the first time. A person who lives the most interesting life full of luxuries which are enjoyed by the family and relatives too! A special Rashtrapati Bhavan and foreign trips make the life of a President lavish. They have their speech writers doing all the hard work of writing the stuff that needs to be read out on public occasions, and there is always the Photostat to help in the recycling of lofty thoughts and aspirations. It is, generally, a fairly non-controversial job, because you do not have to take important decisions anyway. Even if ticklish issues come up — like the dismissal of a legitimate state government — no one really cares since it is accepted that the president is, anyway, only a rubber stamp. But no one cares about this post as the president elections are like a race for political parties where they want their candidate to win. We therefore seriously need to decide whether or not we need this post.

One would think that this confusion over the proper scope of the relationship between the President and PM would have been resolved by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment passed in 1976. Language was inserted via this amendment into Article 74 of the Constitution clearly compelling the President to follow the aid and advice of the COM headed by the PM.

However, another controversy flared up between the President and PM shortly afterwards, when the first non-Congress government came to power in 1977 in the aftermath of the Emergency. Then Prime Minister Morarji Desai wanted to dismiss Congress-led state governments which in his eyes had lost the support of the public. However the acting President BD Jatti refused to comply with this directive, as required by Article 74. The Law Minister at the time, Shanti Bhushan, has recounted that it was only after the PM dispatched a sternly worded letter to Jatti that he gave in and a constitutional crisis was averted.

Another dimension of Presidential power came to light in the 1980s in the form of a device known as “pocket-veto.” Its emergence highlights the fact that despite a written Constitution specifying the President’s role, “grey areas” concerning the scope of his (or her) powers persist. In this case, the India Post Office (Amendment) Bill of 1986 was passed by both Houses and sent to President Giani Zail Singh for assent, as per the Constitution. But Singh, whose relations with PM Rajiv Gandhi had soured considerably by this point, broke with precedent and never gave his assent. He didn’t refuse, he simply failed to respond. As a result the controversial Bill, which gave significant powers of mail interception to the government, never became law and it was said that the President had “pocketed” the bill—hence the term pocket veto.

It is often said that the President of India is a ceremonial representative of India, above party politics. But that notion has been undermined many times, not merely by this year’s contest. Of the12 Presidents so far, nine were politicians, starting with the first President, Rajendra Prasad. Nor did they all rise to the elevated heights suggested by the rhetoric surrounding the Presidential office. In 1975, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed promptly signed the declaration of Emergency as requested by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, clearing the way for her to rule India as a personal dictatorship. To be fair, the cabinet and parliament rolled over as well, as did the Supreme Court, which reversed the decision against her election. Zail Singh, another Congress party loyalist who was made President by Indira Gandhi, was reported to have said that he would have swept floors had she required that of him. In the event, he appointed her son Rajiv – a greenhorn in politics – as Prime Minister after her assassination (ignoring precedent and thwarting the ambitions of senior cabinet minister Pranab Mukherjee).

Apart from political cronyism, the appointment of Presidents has often smacked of tokenism. Four of the 12 Presidents were Muslim – an over-representation of a minority group which was found by the recent Sachar Committee report to be significantly deprived in terms of development and representation as a whole. Muslims also suffered the pogroms in Gujarat in 2002, in which the state government was widely alleged to have been complicit, yet its leader remains in power and is seen as a future prime ministerial candidate. Zail Singh was a Sikh President, yet Sikhs were massacred after Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards and the victims have never received justice. Indeed, Zail Singh himself was reported to have been involved in the meddling in the state politics in Punjab in concert with Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay, which created the extremist crisis in Punjab in the first place.

Not all forms of “tokenism” are without some positive side-effects, such as breaking barriers and setting up role models. However, it rather depends on the candidate and whether there was any real impact on the group in question. KR Narayanan, a diplomat before joining politics, was the first person of the “untouchable” caste to become President. Dalits, as members of the lowest castes are called, remain vulnerable and disadvantaged as a group, and in terms of actual political power the community arguably gained more from the rise of Mayawati and the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. Sangma, the opposition’s candidate for President, served as Speaker of the Lower House, but has also presented himself as the first “tribal” Presidential candidate.

The incumbent President, Pratibha Patil, was the first woman to hold the position. While the fact that she is a woman was highlighted at the time of her election, it is doubtful that being female was the real reason for the Congress party choosing her. There are many women of accomplishment in India who might have fit that bill; Patil was a little-known party loyalist with a fairly undistinguished career, a trait she continued as President. Corruption allegations against her surfaced when her candidacy was announced, but political arithmetic ensured her victory and the office precluded any investigation. Needless to say, there is no discernible impact of Patil’s presidency on the position of women in Indian society.

When we question the post of President, we must do it to Governor’s post too! Thus, India will be the largest democratic country in true sense only when we stop wasting tax-payer’s money in such decisions. The post of President and Governor should be finished and our present politicians should handle the problems of the country.