Ram Nath Kovind: Gentleman President

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By Manish Anand

New Delhi, July 23: When President Ram Nath Kovind will leave his office on Monday, the Parliament, which he heads, will be at the most disruptive phase, the judiciary will be sparring with the executive, the Centre-State relations will be most quarrelsome, and the line of actual control in Ladakh will still have the Indian Army facing their Chinese counterpart.

President Kovind’s tenure coincided with a stable government at the Centre, with the ruling party on its commanding majority in the Lok Sabha. Half of his tenure was spent during the once in a century pandemic that shut down the country for a few weeks, while full normalcy is yet to return, as scores of professionals still work from the office.

On Saturday, the joint session of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha bid him farewell, with full attendance of the MPs, which is rare these days in the two Houses given the pandemonium being the new normal of the Parliament.

In his farewell speech, President Kovind spoke as the head of the family, advising the MPs not to spar but look at the national interests and work for the larger goods of the country as a collective force.

He advised that the political parties shouldn’t be partisan in their worldviews.

President Kovind gave an account of the progress that the country has made such as a very few people live in houses of mud with leaky roofs, as he had done, and most of the villages now are electrified, while the least number of the people have to use the earthen lamps and lanterns.

Besides, President Kovind noted that his tenure witnessed the celebrations of the 150^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and the 75^th year of the Independence of the country.

He urged upon the people who exercise their legitimate rights to protest to adopt the Gandhian ways.

For the sparring Parliamentarians, President Kovind reminded that debate and dialogue are the ways out to resolve the differences for the larger goods of the country.

One of the speeches of President Kovind, which had trended in the recent months, was the one in which he had politely called upon the judiciary to exercise restraint and not play to the gallery while making courtroom observations.

He also had similar sagely words for the legislators of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly a few weeks ago where he had flagged off political rancour.

“In a democracy, there could be difference of ideology between the ruling party and the Opposition, but there shouldn’t be animosity between the two sides,” President Kovind had said in the UP Assembly.

It’s understandable that President Kovind may be seen as too gentleman a person that he didn’t speak too often when there were occasions where he should have been heard to protect the highest ideals of the Indian democracy.

But the office of President is only about symbolism.