Making Nobody’s Man feel at home in Rashtrapati Bhawan

Curiously, on the same day, there was a letter to one of the national newspapers from a person in Allahabad, relating his personal experience of finding a 13-year old boy not being able to recognise the face or name of the future President. The writer was taking the Minister for Human Resource Development, Murli Manohar Joshi, to task for not ensuring that children were adequately educated. The writer should blame a whole lot of people going back 50 years because there are tribal pockets where people have never gone to vote and believe that Indira Gandhi is still alive. The very fact that Dr Kalam is well aware of this and intends to do something about it is reflected in his keenness to bring school children to see the inside of Rastrapati Bhawan.

There have been reams written on the unwelcome activism of Giani Zail Singh during the stand-off with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the malleability of Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad in signing the proclamation declaring the Emergency under instructions from Indira Gandhi. Most of the other Presidents have been unstinted Congressmen who were never expected to harm the interests of the Congress even while remaining aloof from political interference or partisanship. Finally we have someone who is nobody’s man, irrespective of how much the churlish Left parties and a small section of narrow-minded Muslims may like to paint him as a man of the so-called saffron brigade. These groups keep forgetting that apart from the BJP and Shiv Sena who are dubbed saffron, there are over two dozen parties outside of the BJP’s ideological spectrum who have happily voted for Dr Kalam, giving him the second highest margin ever.

As a Muslim completely at ease being culturally integrated with both Muslim and Hindu ways of life, and having been an intelligent onlooker at the ways of political parties and politics for many decades while working in a highly important and sensitive sector of India’s development, there is no doubt that Kalam will be perfectly adept at fulfilling the role expected of a resident with grace and wisdom.

This is the propensity that Kalam has for being an iconoclast, in a gentle and harmless way. He has his own hairstyle and he is entitled to keep it without photofeatures suggesting changes. Leave alone bandhgala jackets and blue shirts, if he wishes to wear a clean white dhoti and kurta to meet routine visitors daily, are we going to be like the British and turn up our noses at such ‘‘native’’ sartorial choices? If he wishes to convert one of the plush gilded rooms into a small laboratory so that children who may come to see roses blooming in the garden may also get a quick lesson in technology or computer simulated engineering concepts that make them think creatively, are we going to express shock and dismay?

The whole edifice of Rashtrapati Bhavan is not in consonance with India’s aspirations of being free from imperialism, colonialism and feudalism. Tied to these restrictive burdens is the weight of an establishment that has been imitative and run by a bureaucracy that first copied Her Majesty’s Civil Service and, after liberalisation has turned to the American corporate sector for guidance in language and dress sense. Of course, all this happens because when we search for what is really ‘‘Indian’’, we immediately fall upon each other over whether that means Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or Christian, and Bengali, Maharashtrian, Tamilian or Bihari and finally whether it means Brahmin, Rajput, Backward or Scheduled Caste.

Kalam has the inclination and should feel confident of the support he would get if he is allowed what are seen as eccentricities to come into the daily mannerisms of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Should we have the horse and carriage or is it something more than a tourist attraction for us on Republic Day? Should the waiters dress like attendants of feudal warriors? Can a corner of the vast building become a museum for memorabilia from the history of independent India? Could a small section be set aside for an interactive science display like the excellent effort initially made at the Dr Vishveshwarayya Museum in Bangalore?

Would Kalam be allowed to take children around and engage them in creative interaction so that their thought processes are stimulated? Why must we collectively consign an active and intelligent mind into becoming a staid and standard figurehead who is expected to come to life only when someone makes a mess of things in Parliament or nod in quiet sympathy when a delegation of leaders goes to him to complain about the perceived misdemeanors of another party?

We usually want Presidents to do everything to redress major grievances, yet we cannot allow him to interfere in the government’s daily functioning. As a moral and constitutional authority, and the Supreme Commander of the armed forces he has either capability or inputs. For the rest, let us allow him to bring Rashtrapati Bhawan closer to the people and stimulate a fresh atmosphere away from useless pomp and ceremonial hollowness.

(The writer is a Samata Party leader)