A New Role for India's President

...A President who clearly knows his powers would then be of inestimable value in steadying the hand of Nehru's successor...

...In a bold move just 15 months before the next general elections, the President, therefore, has thrown into the political arena the suggestion that the powers and functions of the Presidency should be scrutinized de novo with the obvious intention of providing the country with one supreme and stabilizing factor around which it can rally, particularly in times of crisis...

...But Prasad's queries seem to relate to a time in the foreseeable future when the President of India may not be a party man, certainly not a Congress party man, and may be elected by the parliamentary vote of more than one party...

...The report will take six months to prepare—a period calculated to turn public fancy to other matters...

...He is also said to have played a leading behind-the-scenes role in persuading the Government to allow him to dismiss the Communist Kerala Ministry for unconstitutional acts...

...He may also be seeking, obliquely, to answer the growing criticism that the Government, in the person of Jawaharlal Nehru, is arming itself with more and more powers...

...Prasad is also unofficially known to be dissatisfied with the handling of the border situation, Chinese aggression and the Tibet problem, and is said to feel that the Government's foreign policy let the country down...

...his record of service is widely known...

...Article 75 says that the Prime Minister shall be appointed by the President and other Ministers shall be appointed by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister, with the whole Council responsible to the Lok Sabha—the lower House of Parliament President Prasad now wants to know how far these and other ancillary provisions go toward making his powers identical with those of the British monarch...

...And once it is out there is still bound to be much legal hair-splitting about interpretation...

...After Nehru, this country will have to readjust itself to a mediocre, unspectacular new leadership and this readjustment period may be a time of some political instability...

...The efforts were made because Prasad is known to differ with Nehru over some diplomatic appointments, on which the President is entitled to be consulted...

...Prasad will not be that man...

...and his stature is equal to any in the country...

...He appears also to be taking a look at the immediate future when the problems of a bustling, impatient, developing subcontinent definitely become too much for the shoulders of one, aging man...

...and 2) whether his role must necessarily be identical with that of the British monarch, which is the opinion of some of his constitutional advisors—and of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru...

...And as a former Indian peasant, he does not seem entirely sure that the Nehru Government policies of cooperative farming and agrarian reform may not lead to compulsion...

...He has been in office for a two-term period of five years each and he is due to retire in 1962...

...It is possible that a President who can effectively exercise his powers within the Constitution may provide the immediate answer to the often-asked question: "After Nehru, what...

...Meanwhile, the President is known to be exerting himself to get closer to his Prime Minister and Council, now frequent visitors at Rashtrapati Bhavan—the President's house...

...Moreover, after a long political career, Prasad has become dissatisfied, along with millions of his fellow countrymen, with the muddle and confusion attending India's progress toward self-sufficiency and with his own inability even to suggest how matters can be set to right...

...And in the public view Prasad is beginning to emerge as yet another high source to which complaints can be addressed...

...It has been rumored that Prasad was against sending Krishna Menon back to the United Nations...

...The President has acted constitutionally and both he and the Prime Minister have agreed that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court make a preliminary study of the President's powers under the Constitution...

...The Indian people now know that the highest authority in the land is giving advice on, if not guiding, actual day-to-day policy and as the elections come round, the question may be asked more and more often why his advice in a particular context was not followed...

...For the moment, speculation that a full-scale revolt against the Nehru regime is under way seems baseless...

...Article 74 states that there shall be a Council of Ministers with a Prime Minister at the head to advise the President in the exercise of his functions...

...Nor is it likely that a President can really use his powers for the country's well-being until such time as the ruling Congress party's majorities in both houses of Parliament are substantially reduced...

...He is known to be unhappy over the Government's refusal to extend the term of General Thimayya, Army Chief of Staff, due to retire in May 1961, and who last year offered to resign after differences of opinion with Defense Minister Menon...

...By Sharokh Sabavala Prasad is now playing a major role in country's policies A NEW ROLE FOR INDIA'S PRESIDENT NEW DELHI AFTER BEHAVING for 10 years strictly according to protocol as the constitutional head of the Republic, Indian President Rajendra Prasad now has publicly questioned the functions and powers of his high office and asked the Law Institute of India to give its opinion on: 1) whether he is bound at all times to follow the advice of his Council of Ministers...

...For the President is elected by both these houses...

...AS THESE differences of opinion became common knowledge, state Governors, who are nominees of the President, also began to show restiveness at their relegation by state Chief Ministers and Cabinets to a purely ceremonial and ornamental position...

...As Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, at times he appears unhappy with the apparently politically motivated appointments of Defense Minister Menon...

...His reputation is unblemished...

...In addition, he is concerned with the growing revolt of the states against the authority of the Federal Government and the many other domestic difficulties of Prime Minister Nehru, who, now in his 14th year of office, seems to consult no one, be guided by no one and listen to no one...

...he is, therefore, a majority party nominee and, more important, if he consistently flouts the advice of his Ministers who, in turn, are responsible to Parliament, then Parliament may impeach him by a two-thirds majority...

...Relations between the President and his Ministers are governed by Articles 74 and 75 of the Indian Constitution...

...Although he did not say so, the "conditions and circumstances" which he had in mind obviously revolve around the rapid break-up of the ruling Indian National Congress party of which he has been a former president and distinguished leader for several decades, and around the growing disputes between the ministerial and party wings in several states, which recently led to the dissolution of a party ministry in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh...

...For Rajendra Prasad, a colleague of Gandhi, a freedom-fighter and a founding father of the Republic, is no mere party nominee...

...For the last two years, Prasad has resisted efforts to make him a focal point of attack on an increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister...

...He has chosen this particular comparison because so much of the Indian Constitution is based on the unwritten laws of its British counterpart and because he feels that reliance on British precedent in India is so great that "it seems almost sacrilegious for us to differ on interpretation even when our conditions and circumstances seem to require a different interpretation...