Why Romesh Bhandari Survives
If it is true that we get the legislators we deserve, it must also be true that we get the governors we deserve. Of all the worthies who have occupied Raj Bhavans so far, there is a consensus that the current incumbent in Lucknow would easily win a contest for the most Machiavellian of them all. True, there have been stiff competitors in the past, but Romesh Bhandari easily sweeps the awards for his exertions in the recent past.
Unofficial contests are one thing. The problem is that governorship remains a serious business, and is central to the cut and thrust of politics in India. The tragedy of the governor, though, is that his office has already been devalued by successive governments at the Centre until he is reduced to being little more than a local agent of the ruling party. The appointment of a person like Bhandari - colourful in every sense of the term - to the post, appears a logical denouement of this trend.
B K Nehru, one of the few men respected for their stints in Raj Bhavan, puts the situation in perspective: As far as governors are concerned, we have now gotten to the point of acting directly in contradiction not only to the spirit, but also the letter of the Constitution...What we have done is to convert the Governor into an official, not even of the Central government but of the political party in power at the Centre... Any attempt to govern India as a unitary state will destroy its unity. But political parties are too short-sighted and too self-centred to understand the long-term implications of their actions; it may be that they are totally uninterested in what they are as long as they can sit in the seats of power that too, to what end, I have not been able to fathom.
Nehru made these points in a letter to Bhishma Narain Singh when Singh preferred to resign as Tamil Nadu governor in 1993 rather than buckle under pressures from those in power at the Centre.
There have been numerous occasions mainly during Congress regimes at the Centre when the report that the governor has to send recommending dismissal of the government in his state was prepared in Delhi and transmitted to him to be despatched to the Centre as a constitutional document! Presidents rule has been imposed 104 times so far, and it is a fair guess on how many occasions the case for dismissing the government was genuine, given the fact that for over 40 years the Congress has been in power at the Centre.
In the past, during each of his tenures as governor in Goa and Tripura, and as the lieutenant governor of Delhi, Romesh Bhandari has been nothing less than flamboyant and audacious. But he has always emerged unscathed. The day after his boss, President K R Narayanan, returned the Union Cabinets recommendation based on his report recommending Central rule in Uttar Pradesh, Bhandari was reported to be nonchalantly preparing to tee off on a holiday to Nainital. The Uttar Pradesh imbroglio may have caused some jitters in Delhi, but for him, it was all in a days work.
Bhandari also got away by refusing to follow the practice adopted by the President of inviting the single largest party to form a government even when it did not have a majority. Last year, Shankar Dayal Sharma had invited the BJP to form the governmnt in Delhi. But when it emerged as the largest party in Uttar Pradesh, Bhandari said he was not duty-bound to follow the same practice. Today, he is seen to be so beholden to the powers-that-be in Delhi that it has left several leaders like Indrajit Gupta acutely embarrassed.
How does Bhandari get away with all this? B R Ambedkar could have provided an answer in a speech in the Constituent Assembly: I feel that it (the Constitution) is workable. It is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and war time. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that man was vile.
Ambedkar was clearly anticipating the likes of Ram Lal (Andhra Pradesh) in the eighties and K K Shah (Tamil Nadu) in the seventies, who blindly followed the Centres diktats and acted against the N T Rama Rao and M Karunanidhi governments respectively.
But Bhandari has scaled new heights. So strong was the reaction to Ram Lals move of dismissing the Rama Rao government that he was forced to make an unceremonious exit. But there is little indication of any such move against Bhandari, which again adds to the mans enigma. Leading lights of the United Front government have been strongly against him, including the Left elements, for his role as governor of Tripura, but there is something about the dapper man that ensures that he stays in office.
It may be considered an understatement, but the 69-year-old Bhandari is said to be a shrewd tactician with an uncanny sense of politics. He used those qualities when he was in the foreign service, but has employed them more effectively and skilfully after joining Rajiv Gandhis charmed circle. He began his political odyssey after retiring as the foreign secretary in March 1986. In private, he comes across as a highly articulate and entertaining conversationalist, and a man of well cultivated tastes. He gloats over the fact that during his stint in the foreign service, he was dubbed a snake, who could find a way out of any obstacle.
My qualities of persuasion and handling of situations, acquired during my initial years in the foreign service under the late Krishna Menon, have enabled me to tackle problems...He was always bursting with new ideas. His was the most innovative brain, Bhandari says. And like his mentor, Bhandari too is unlikely to be popular with politicians.