The Hindu Business Line : Suspended animation is no dead letter

ONE more instance of President's rule is in the day's news, this time in Bihar. But when airwaves are busier with the cricket tour of our traditional rivals, suspended animation will be perceived more on pitches, with anxious eyes on scoreboards and third umpire's lights. Yet, government is big business, and for those in the high-stakes game, suspended animation is no laughing matter.

If with all seriousness you Google the phrase, top on search results will be a comic art review column going by that name. A cruel joke, that is, on the elected MLAs, because to them suspended animation is more like the Damocles' sword. Dissolution can end the party even before it started; and with a stroke of the pen, it can trash in its wake all the votes that people polled, and resemble a Greek tragedy.

With fractured mandate more a norm than an exception, we have one more State, that of Shibu, in queue. There again, the government hangs by the thread of a forthcoming confidence vote, failing which, we may have a hat trick of sorts in terms of President's rule.

It may not serve any purpose if you wanted to know more about the legislative assemblies kept in abeyance, and therefore visited http://presidentofindia.nic.in because the most recent press release is about conveying the felicitations of the first citizen to all the women of India for their role in shaping the destiny of the nation and in its transformation into a developed nation by 2020. On the PM's site too, you may only end up with his letter to Rajasthan Chief Minister, calling for action to save the Tiger.

A good place to start is http://indiacode.nic.in where you have a searchable Constitution. For a friendlier interface, however, there is http://www.constitution.org. The relevant Article is 356 on President's rule in case of failure of constitutional machinery in States.

You may not find `suspended animation' in the text. Nor does Article 356 speak expressly of dissolution of the Legislative Assembly, notes a Consultation Paper of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution on http://lawmin.nic.in. Lawmakers have stipulated approval of Parliament for the proclamation of President's rule.

Only after such approval, it will be open to the President to dissolve a Legislative Assembly, opines the paper. Until then, he can only keep it "in suspended animation". If the House doesn't okay the proclamation, "the Legislative Assembly springs back to life".

The paper cites the views of Justices P.B. Sawant and Jeevan Reddy in the S.R. Bommai case, and also suggests amendment to Article 356. "It should be provided that until both Houses of Parliament approve the proclamation issued under clause (1) of article 356, the Legislative Assembly cannot be dissolved. If necessary it can be kept only under animated suspension." A variant phrase, that is, though it may find mention in auto reviews too.

For the law-enthusiasts, there's the Sarkaria Commission Report that had cautioned against a liberal interpretation of article 356 which would "reduce the States to mere dependencies and would cut at the root of the democratic, parliamentary, federal form of government."

Digging on the research working paper circuit, you'd find a March 2004 thesis by K. Jayasudha Reddy and Joy V. Joseph titled, "Executive discretion and Article 356 of the Constitution of India: a comparative critique." It traces the origin of Article 356 to the Government of India Act, 1935, where Sections 93 and 45 gave emergency powers to the Governor General and the Governor to exercise near absolute control over the Provinces.

Rewinding by more than half a century, one learns from transcripts of Constituent Assembly debates that it was not without protest that our founding fathers provided such powers in the Constitution. They relented when Dr B.R. Ambedkar assured them: "The proper thing we ought to expect is that such articles will never be called into operation and that they would remain a dead letter. If at all they are brought into operation, I hope the President... will take proper precautions before actually suspending the administration." In practice, though, suspended animation is no dead letter.

Interestingly, the phrase in question is used in the medical world. For instance, an article on www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov reads: "Suspended animation has been suggested for presently unresuscitable conditions and consists of the rapid induction of preservation (using hypothermia with or without drugs) of viability of the brain, heart, and organism (within 5 minutes of normothermic cardiac arrest no-flow), which increases the time available for transport and resuscitative surgery." Perhaps, our democracy too needs doses of suspended animation for resuscitation.

Straying on the Net, you may find `Suspended Animation' on www.ifilm.com, as a 2003 movie that can `chill you to the bone', for it is about a man taken captive by two cannibals. Ideal viewing, I'd say, for citizens who feel that selfish politicians have taken our governance captive.

The man in the movie has a narrow escape, returns to his normal life, and develops an unhealthy obsession for one of the two cannibals. Which again is no different from what happens in politics after the suspense is over.

ZeroBase@TheHindu.co.in

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