What is needed from a Governor is reticence Premium

Governors need to steer clear of controversies, especially those unconnected with their constitutional duties

The Tamil Nadu Governor, R.N. Ravi, has recently been in the news for the wrong reason. Instead of confining himself to his role which requires that Governors steer clear of controversies, especially those unconnected with their constitutional duties, Mr. Ravi has waded into the minefield of interpretation of historical events which led to India’s Independence. Even a Governor with a background of historical studies should avoid this. But Mr. Ravi was a student of physics who joined the Indian Police Service and spent long years in the Intelligence Bureau (IB). He has obviously felt that he had the expertise to publicly express his opinions on an important period of Indian history.

There has been no indication from Mr. Ravi that he has made a detailed study of India’s national movement which, under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, aimed at the comprehensive transformation of a feudal, largely obscurantist and hierarchical society along with the achievement of freedom from British colonialism. All the great leaders of the national movement played their part in this noble enterprise. In any event, it is intrinsically wrong for any constitutional authority to play up the role of some and denigrate that of others.

Mr. Ravi has been reported as saying that the Quit India movement made little impact on the British decision to leave India. Instead, it was insecurity felt by the British at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose forming the Azad Hind Government and its army (INA) and in 1946 by the Naval Mutiny and the Air Force Rebellion. Apparently, Mr. Ravi formed this view from his reading of IB files of the relevant period. He has also cited a conversation between British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and an acting Governor of Bengal in which Mr. Attlee said that the impact of ‘non-cooperation’ was minimal but that the British left because they felt ‘insecure’ after the ‘Naval Revolt and the Air Force Rebellion’.

Under criticism for his assertions and views, Mr. Ravi clarified that he had the ‘highest respect’ for Mahatma Gandhi. At the same time, he reiterated his views on the departure of the British from India. There is no doubt that the loyalty of Indian soldiers in the British Indian armed forces was a principal pillar of their rule in India. If not for the Indian soldiers who served in the armies of the East India Company, the British could not have conquered India. Most historians of the national movement also acknowledge that the INA and the naval mutiny shook British confidence in the loyalty of the Indian members of their army in India. And, obviously, after the Second World War, circumstances created by the national movement, Britain’s economic weakening and the international situation simply did not permit them to even think of undertaking armed action to retain their rule in India.

Hence, Mr. Ravi was right in praising Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s great contribution in achieving Independence. This is almost universally acknowledged. Despite the great ideological differences in leaders of the freedom movement none of them ever denigrated Netaji or the INA. Had that been so, would it have been possible for so many of the lawyers among them to come together to defend the three officers — Prem Kumar Sehgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Shah Nawaz Khan — at their court martial at the Red Fort in 1945-46? The great lawyer, Bhulabhai Desai, led the defence which included Tej Bahadur Sapru, Jawaharlal Nehru and Kailas Nath Katju. This writer would be forgiven for making a personal reference. As Katju’s grandson and Sapru’s great-grandson, he knows full well the enormous admiration that Netaji evoked in them.

It would not be out of place to quote from Katju’s unpublished biography of the impact of the INA trial. He writes that because of them “The excitement in the country was intense and indescribable”. He goes on to note, “I am firmly of the opinion that just as the murders in Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 laid the foundation stone of our national struggle, similarly the Indian National Army trials were the definite cause of the withdrawal of the British rule in India in August 1947. The British discovered for themselves that it was impossible for them to continue…”.

It is obvious that Mr. Ravi feels that Netaji was not given due recognition for his contribution to the country’s Independence by the Congress party because of Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors, and that this lapse has now been corrected. It is Mr. Ravi’s right to feel so. What is not open to him while holding the office of Governor is to make his views public. Governors are also not expected to make comparisons, howsoever indirectly, of the impact of the actions of different leaders of the national movement. What is needed from Governors is reticence. As a former civil servant, Mr. Ravi should certainly know this.