Two protocol-governed events last week serve to illustrate — one in a warm light and the other not so pleasantly — the current state of relations between heads of state governments and the constitutional offices of the Republic.
The first was the proper farewell visit paid to outgoing Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi by Chief Minister MK Stalin despite their frosty relations over the past four and a half years; the other was the unseemly spat between President Droupadi Murmu and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over protocol niceties.
During his controversial tenure, Governor Ravi repeatedly blocked the DMK government’s bills, promoted the culture wars agenda of the BJP-led Union Government, questioned the Dravidian model of development, and took issue with the very name of the state. Despite all that, he was accorded due farewell honours upon his transfer to West Bengal, with the Chief Minister presenting him a statuette of saint-poet Thiruvalluvar so he would have a warm memory of the state.
This was as it should be, whatever the pressures of office. In the spirit of the Constitution, ceremonial sendoffs must facilitate new beginnings. Or at the very least, they must avoid leaving a bad taste in the mouth, as unfortunately happened when Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his fellow ministers kept away from a farewell accorded to the equally obstructionist governor Arif Mohammed Khan in 2024.
In contrast with the niceties followed in Tamil Nadu, the chief minister of West Bengal should have gone the extra distance to attend President Murmu’s speech to the International Santhal Conference in Siliguri on Saturday. Mamata Banerjee’s decision not to accompany the President as she was busy in a protest against the Election Commission in Kolkata has given scope to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to throw the Blue Book of protocol at her. The chief minister’s defence that her government did not know “who organised this programme, who attended it, who funded it” sounds specious because her government’s intelligence department would surely have done due diligence.
However, while Mamata could have taken the extra step to be at hand, it is the BJP-led Union government that comes up short for involving the President in this episode of politicking, and indeed the office of the President herself for allowing her to be sucked into it. Going beyond the remit of her office, Murmu made remarks — all delivered in the manner of chiding a “younger sister” — that could only be interpreted as critical of the state government, in particular of the arrangements made for the conference and the treatment of Santhals, a tribe to which she belongs.
This episode has all the signs of a classical culture wars set-up, a form of politics the BJP-led Union government practices with impunity, regardless of the dignity of any office. So far, governors and other constitutional offices have been used as instruments in this game. It is unfortunate that the office of the President itself is now being weaponised. The alacrity with which the Prime Minister and the Vice-President have pounced on the opportunity provided by this feigned “insult” shows how deeply the BJP-led Union government is invested in vitiating relations between states and the highest offices of the Republic.