(S)election of President of India

I do not know whether the President of India is an elected or a selected post. True, there is an election for the post (representational, at one remove), but if one focused on the process it appears more like a selection process – parties hoisting the most unworthy against the ostensibly less unworthy pre-selected (?) nominee in a spurious election.

The last time round, being enamored of the Raisina Hill residence, Kalam wanted to cling on to the post, but if and only if he was unopposed in the election. That sounded more like selection, did it not?

The parties get together and select some unworthy (when the worthiness of a post becomes a point of debate as it did in the Chanakya column of Hindustan Times of May 6^th, everyone in that post becomes unworthy, admittedly some more than the others). Now, it is time to do that wasteful exercise (almost everything connected with the post is wasteful). How to make it less wasteful?

I have a brilliant idea. We should have nomination hearings, a la those for federal judgeships, including the US Supreme Court. There are specific litmus-test positions for the nominees, like abortion, death penalty, voting rights. In India and in the context of the selection of the president, the most relevant issue among the above in my perspective is death penalty.

The nominee should be asked, put through the wringer indeed, whether he (we have already had the token female) would clear the files awaiting his decision (the italics indicate my contempt for this pseudo, though constitutionally mandated, process) on granting or otherwise amnesty for the condemned – the death row inmates. We may not be able to go through it case-by-case but the nominee should at least indicate the principles, beyond constitutional requirements, that would dictate his thinking. Is there a mind under the mop of hair or the bald pate, and the protection of the high office?

Put the nominee in the dock and also the political parties. We do need to know what the president may do once ensconced comfortably.

See who, which politician or political party, blinks first. This would inform the citizen, if they care to be informed at all, as to who it is who actually delays the final decision on the matter. The lack of such process to hold the president responsible leads to the unconscionable delays in the process. There was no one to question Kalam when he sat on the files through his tenure. The sit-on continued under Patil.

The results of the drilling process can crystallize debates, if any, in the subsequent elections, both state and national. As of now, the election manifestos of the parties are as bland as English food. But with the selection process of the post of president being spiced up and spiked as described above, we would have a more interesting fare! If you have other issues to be so brought under flood lights, let us go get them.

If the constitution needs to be amended, so be it; we are old hands at that!

Raghuram Ekambaram