The Hindu Business Line : Are you a politician?

When this question is posed to an average citizen, the answer usually is a `no', that is, if one is not a practising politician. This is because there is a certain pejorative innuendo associated with the description of someone being a politician, the sense conveyed being that if one is a politician he is `crafty' and an `intriguer'. In fact, if one consults the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, this is the meaning associated with the word `politician' at least till around the middle of the 18th Century.

Of special interest to Indian conditions is the `sinister' meaning attributed to the word (specially in the US) since the early 17th Century, namely, that a politician is someone "who lives by politics as a trade". A politician is also, according to the Shorter Oxford, a `politic person', the meaning of `politic' — again in a `sinister sense' — being "scheming, crafty, cunning". In the `diplomatic' sense, the word means "artfully contriving or contrived'.

Presidential candidate

The exercise of going into the meaning of the word `politician' has been prompted by the recent statements made by Indian politicians of all hues who have backed the principle that the position of President of the Indian Republic should not be filled by a person with a "non-political background". In other words, a `political' person as President would be far more preferable than someone `non-political' ostensibly because the latter type of person would be better able to tackle complex issues with political ramifications.

The Indian Constitution, however, does not lay down any such specific qualification for election to the position of President of the Republic. In fact, you do not even have to be a practising politician to qualify for the job let alone be a `political' person. Article 58 lists three points for eligibility: Being a citizen of India, being at least 35 years of age, and being qualified for election to the Lok Sabha. Among all the distinguished people who have occupied the high office of President, President A. P. J. Kalam and his two illustrious predecessors, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Zakir Husain, (does) did not have a politician's `grooming,' and yet they (have) represented the nation both at home and abroad just as effectively as have all the other Presidents of the Republic, all of whom held political office at some time or the other.

Principle of separation

Over and above the fact that a practising politician has no special claim to the position of President by virtue of any innate ability to sort out complex issues confronting the President's office, it is also clear that espousal of the principle goes against the very grain of the principle of the separation of powers that the Fathers of the Indian Constitution provided for in their scheme of things for the republic. Why should a politician — who engages in party politics as a profession and is a player in the legislative wing of the Indian State — be specially suited to head the executive wing, when the latter wing should not only be unpartisan in its actions but should also be seen to be so?

One would imagine that the suggestion that only people with a grooming in politics should occupy the President's office is nothing less than a slur on that huge mass of the Indian population which has nothing to do with the political world and everything to do with keeping the nation going both internally and in the world at large. Briefly, the fact that the suggestion is being made now indicates, among other things, the extent to which the fabric of the nation's political class has deteriorated.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury