Power & Politics / Mail Today, January 25, 2010

WHEN the going gets tough, the tough get going, goes the saying. The UPA government seems to have total and implicit faith in this adage. The appointment of the former national security advisor MK Narayanan as the new Governor of West Bengal, coming so soon after Naraian Dutt Tewari was summarily packed off from Hyderabad for indulging in activities not generally associated with occupants of Raj Bhavans— least of all 86 year olds— leads me to just one conclusion.

This government is not going to allow governors to treat the Raj Bhavans as farmhouses in the city centre for fun and frolic and rest and recreation. For a change, it is telling them: take your jobs seriously, or here is the pink slip. In these columns a couple of weeks ago, I had written about how successive governments at the Centre had reserved the gubernatorial jobs for over- the- hill politicians who remained content being mere rubber stamps or agents of the ruling party at the Centre.
In the last fortnight, the government appointed or transferred eight governors. Four of them took the oath of office on Friday and the rest are scheduled to do so soon after the Republic Day formalities are done with. Of the 28 incumbents, politicians with 16, not surprisingly form the majority. There are four retired IAS officers: former home secretary NN Vohra in Srinagar, retired Defence Secretary Shekhar Dutt in Chattisgarh, former civil aviation secretary SS Sidhu in Goa, and former Home Secretary BP Singh in Sikkim. Two more are former army men: Retd General JJ Singh and retd Lt Gen MM Lakhera. The rest are, you may have guessed, all retired police officers.

Never in history have six ex- police officers occupied the post of governors at the same time. And the fact that all six, whose efficiency is beyond question and integrity beyond reproach, are in charge of sensitive states is probably an indication that the government truly believes that when the going gets tough, you really have to get the tough going. Narayanan, an IPS officer, former chief of the Intelligence Bureau and the NSA, is now in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee is not the only threat to law and order. When the Telangana strife began, the centre showed the door to ND Tiwari and asked ESL Narasimhan, then governor of Chattisgarh, to hold concurrent charge of Andhra Pradesh.
Narasimhan now has been confirmed as the governor of the state, his old post in Raipur going to retired IAS officer Shekhar Dutt. Narasimhan is a 1968 batch IPS officer and, hailing as he does, from the Andhra cadre, there is no one better suited than him to understand, evaluate and tackle the situation in the state which, if handled without some amount of Narasimhan deftness, could turn into an inferno.

Ex Army man JJ Singh was Director General at the Military Operations Directorate. The Chinese fear none, but it still makes sense to have him as the governor of Arunachal Pradesh where Beijing loves to poke its nose. Nikhil Kumar, Gurbachan Jagat and RS Mooshahary have all had distinguished careers in police forces in different states and are posted in similarly crucial North east stations while the services of BL Joshi, who joined the police in 1957 and has had long stints working with Interpol, Narcotics and Internal Security is just what lawless Uttar Pradesh needs.

These are proven people in sensitive posts. Take them away and who are you left with? The old style politicians whose utility dates in that rough and tumble world is long expired and who are now being used as agents and political rubber stamps in states where the threat is not to the centre, but the ruling party at the centre. This is not to suggest that none of the 16 political appointees deserve to be in their Raj Bhavans. They were all posted as governors because they had reached the sunset of their political careers. As career politicians, they can at best play backroom politics to aid their benefactors at the centre. It is challenge that bring out the best in man. And as these increase by the day, I believe that this government — and those that follow— will think of men and women with proven administrative skills for the Raj Bhavan jobs. Governors should be made of such mettle.

Power & Politics / Mail Today, January 04, 2010

THE job of governor has always been seen as a sinecure. Over- the- hill politicians who needed to be “ accommodated” were dispatched to Raj Bhavans across the country where at best, they were content being mere rubber stamps, at worst, agents for the ruling party at the Centre. Long before Narain Dutt Tiwari came along, most of us knew that the salubrious environments of the gubernatorial estates can make even workaholics lazy. Of course it was Tiwari who showed us how really laid- back the job was. When large parts of Andhra Pradesh burnt over Telangana, Tiwari was busy quelling the fire within his 86 year old frame.

Tiwari is the rule, but there are exceptions.
Years ago, there was Garry Saxena, the former RAW chief who had two stints as governor of the troubled Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s. His role in reviving the government machinery when insurgency was at its peak in the state can’t be minimised. It is perhaps no coincidence that the most proactive governor now is another retired IPS officer, ESL Narasimhan, the former IB chief and governor of Chattisgarh. Last week, I had written about Narasimhan creating a history of sorts when he asked the Centre to restrain home minister P. Chidambaram from visiting the Naxal- hit districts of Chhattisgarh.

After Tiwari quit the Hyderabad Raj Bhavan in shame, Narasimhan was concurrently assigned the Hyderabad job and in less than a week, the results are there for all to see. Last week, the Centre summoned him to Delhi for consultations. This has raised eyebrows since, when a state government is in office, it is the chief minister that New Delhi interacts with. The call to Narasimhan is a sure sign that the Centre thinks he has started well. Repulsive as their efforts were, the TV channel that did a sting operation on Tiwari’s alleged romp may have done the people of Andhra Pradesh a favour by forcing him to quit.

There is no better replacement than Narasimhan who has got the confidence of 10 Janpath and shares a good rapport with the national security advisor M. K. Narayanan. Narasimhan got down to work right away, and spent New Year’s Eve not in Raipur but in Hyderabad. In less than a week that he has been in charge, the stand- in governor has initiated a series of measures that have raised confidence levels in the ruling establishment.

On his first day at work, he met with a cross section of the political leaders in Hyderabad. Shortly after he met the TRS’s Chandrasekhar Rao, Narasimhan spoke to Narayanan, the Prime Minister’s secretary TKA Nair and home secretary G. K. Pillai. The feed- ESL Narasimhan back from him was in line with the initiatives that the Centre had in mind for the state. As far as creation of the new Telangana state was concerned, his advice was that “ nothing need be done in a hurry”. Another document marked “ Top Secret” dispatched to New Delhi last Wednesday had detailed minutes of his interactions with leaders of 14 political parties in the state ranging from the Congress, the TDP, the Left and the BJP besides details of his meetings with chief minister K Rosiah and members of his cabinet. He made independent assessments of the likely impact that the impending bandh called by opposition parties would have on various parts of the state.

The Joint Director of IB posted in Hyderabad was asked to send twice daily reports on the law and order situation, especially the safety and security of the many central government installations spread across the state. His impeccable credentials as an officer give him the right to pick up his mobile phone and talk directly to the Home Minister and senior officials in the PMO as well as summon senior Central and state officials for discussions.

The lure of a long stint in the Raj Bhavan is too irresistible for politicians whose best days are behind them. Andhra Pradesh has shown that a governor’s job is not a time- pass occupation. In the few days he has been in charge, Narasimhan has already made a difference. There is a moral in this. If a pesky retired politician has to be accommodated, give him a PSU chairmanship or some such thing.

The company will already have been milked so dry, there will be nothing left to be lost.