The words ‘customary’ , ‘ceremonial’ and ‘ritual’ are employed to describe the addresses of the President of India to our Parliament at its opening sessions each year and, likewise, to characterise those of Governors when they address the Legislative Assemblies in their State capitals.
India being the land of largely unquestioned custom, ceremonials and rituals, these addresses of the Head of State have also become part of the life of our polity. The President of India and Governor arrive with ‘due’ fanfare, perform the ceremony of which the officiating ‘priest’ is the Speaker or Chairman, and depart feeling greatly relieved that it is over.
Editorial | The real travesty: On the Governor of Tamil Nadu and the Governor’s address
The speeches or addresses of the Head of State for these occasions, following British practice, are drafted by the government of the day. They are not written by the President of India or Governor, but only read out by them. The drafts for these are received in their offices generally very close to the event and require them to be gone through against a tight time frame. This in itself makes the suggesting of changes by them difficult.
A thought that was worth pursuing
R. Venkataraman, the President of India from 1987 to 1992, was fond of saying, with his characteristic smile, to staff (I was his Joint Secretary), “When I am asked to read these Addresses, I feel like saying ‘Rashtrapati Bhavan’ and sitting down!” He went through the drafts of the Addresses he got from the Government of the day line by line and word by word. And he — not so much we on his staff — would mark out those he felt needed modification. I do not recall a single occasion when his responses were not accepted in toto. But there was one ‘move’ of his which did not go through.
He asked us, shortly after he assumed office, to contact the Indian High Commission in London to find out what the form of Her Majesty’s ‘Throne Speech’, delivered at the opening of the sessions of the two Houses each year or immediately after a general election, was like. It was his distinct impression, he said, that the speech prepared by Her Majesty’s Government is very brief, merely outlining the outer contours of policy and the legislative business proposed for the session ahead — and nothing more. That, he said, is how it should ideally be with the opening of Parliament in India, in place of the long speech that is read out in extenso to a progressively tired gathering of Hon’ble Members of Parliament, followed by an equally long translation into Hindi or English as the case may be. President Venkataraman’s chief concern was the saving of time and the avoiding of tedium. But he was also aware of the gain from such a reform in terms of the avoiding of interruptions and the other phenomenon which has come so unfortunately to be associated with legislatures’ opening ceremonies — tension between the writer and reader of the speech.
The High Commission was ‘duly’ approached and specimens of Her Majesty’s speeches obtained, all of which went to show President Venkataraman’s memory to have been spot on. But, sadly, the suggestion made to the government of the day that the British practice be considered for adoption in New Delhi was not heeded.
President K.R. Narayanan, in office from 1997-2002, was no less painstaking with the drafts. We on his team (I was Secretary to the President) would marvel at his being able to spot phrases with subtle connotations which would be best rectified. It gave me no small happiness to see officers of the government acknowledge the pertinence and propriety of changes that ‘KRN’ directed us to convey. Needless to say, the changes suggested were so patently un-biased and good that they were accepted not just without demur, but gratefully.
A cameo from Kolkata
In Kolkata, as Governor of West Bengal (2004-2009), it was my privilege to suggest, on a few occasions, some changes to draft Addresses to the Hon’ble Legislative Assembly and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee invariably accepted them. On the first such occasion, when he had accepted the suggestion at once, there was a slip. On the night before the ceremony, I noticed, to my dismay, that the printed text which had just come to me, had not carried out the change. The matter was important enough for me to bring it to Buddhababu’s attention over the telephone. He said to me, “I am to blame. Let me see what I can do but rest assured it will be done.” Was there enough time to re-print hundreds of copies of the Address? There was not. The Chief Minister did the next best thing. He had a piece of paper pasted over the paragraph concerned, on each and every copy, overnight.
This, of course, drew more attention to the paragraph than its appearance in print would have done and Opposition Members of the Legislative Assembly found cause to explode. Buddhababu told me later that day, “If the matter comes up formally in the House I will say frankly that you had suggested an important change, that I had agreed to it, but due entirely to my oversight it could not be carried out in time and the next best thing was done… I will lay the facts on the table.” This was political civility.
Occasion arose for me to officiate as the Governor of Bihar (January to June 2006). Exactly as now, Nitish Kumar was Chief Minister, heading a coalition of the Janata Dal (United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party, with Rabri Devi being Leader of the Opposition. The draft for the Governor’s Address was unexceptionable and written in flawless Hindi which was, for me, a pleasure to read out. There was not one interruption (which I was expecting) and I noticed throughout when I looked in her direction that Rabri Devi was listening attentively and with the greatest dignity. After the ceremony was over, Nitishbabu said to me that it was the first time in his experience that a Governor’s Address to the Assembly had gone off without a single interruption, and he thanked me for it. “Why are you thanking me?” I said to him. “The speech was not mine, it was yours.” I will not detain the reader with his rather overwhelming reply.
To conclude: turbulence in the House is not new. Unseemliness has been seen in them for decades. But controversy over Governors’ addresses in Assemblies are now rising in frequency and velocity, with Governors, whose dignity is inseparable from that of the edifice of the state and the government bartering accusations and counter-accusations.
Where the problem lies
The root of the problem lies in the foundational dichotomy of one agency writing the speech and another reading it. Professor A.R. Venkatachalapathy published not long ago a fine book, Who Owns That Song? — about the rights to Subramania Bharati’s ‘nationalised’ works. One may, following that, ask of the Governor’s Address ‘Who Owns that Speech?’ The one who writes it or the one who reads it out? Subject to correction by constitutional experts, I believe that the Address of the Head of State to the Legislature is an ornament of convention, not a condition precedent for Bills becoming law. If it was, then the business of a House that has not had the Governor’s Address read out in full, or in tokenistic part, would become invalid. That is not the case. Address or no Address, the Legislature continues its work.
Since political polarisation between the Centre which appoints Governors and the State which elects the Chief Minister is, to all appearances, set to accelerate in the visualisable future, a way out has to be found. I believe President Venkataraman’s suggested solution gives us that way out. If all concerned agree that the Head of State need read out just the bare outline of the legislative business ahead, the Address will then belong to neither its drafter nor its reader but to its rightful owner-listener, namely, the collective body of Legislators. Presidents and Governors will, I think, be relieved with such a rearrangement.
But what of the governments? Will they be ready to forego the chance to air their accomplishments and plans? They would need convincing that the Motion of Thanks that follows the address is where that airing is best done — as it is, in British Parliament.
It will take an innovative and self-denying Chief Minister to start the reform to rescue a custom, ceremony and ritual of grace from disgrace.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former Governor
