Rashtrapatil Bhavan

Rajendra Singh Shekhawat has resorted to semantics to argue that he has done nothing that amounts to a breach of protocol. Shekhawat, as President Pratibha Patil8217;s son, is understandably keen to extricate himself from a controversy about his unusual itinerary last month. As a member of the delegation for the President8217;s state visit to a clutch of Latin American countries last fortnight, he had broken away for a couple of days to transact personal business in Miami with a Florida university. Where is the ban of his private movements on such trips, he asked in this newspaper. As a family member of the president, is it not akin to tearing himself away from the programme for something as innocuous as shopping? As a matter of fact, it is not. Business deals are decidedly a different matter from shopping bargains. The facts of the meeting he set up are not fully known, but taken together the incident exposes the acute vulnerability of his mother, the president of the Republic of India. It must serve as a caution to her to conduct her affairs of state with more care to detail and nuance.

Pratibha Patil came to Rashtrapati Bhavan last summer in the most extraordinary circumstances. Her nomination was preceded by the most absurd negotiations transacted in public between the Congress and the Left parties. And once her candidature had been announced, a series of disclosures on her cooperative banks and sugar mills was placed in the public domain. Along with those two sectors, Patil had a stake in education, giving her claim to a troika of interests so typical of Maharashtra politicians. The president8217;s responsibilities in India are mostly ceremonial in nature. But the few crucial tasks that go with the job 8212; most prominently, appointing a prime minister or asking an incumbent to seek a vote of confidence 8212; require impeccable credentials of detachment. A vulnerable incumbent automatically invites perceptions of bias and pliability. This is why, no matter what the details of Shekhawat8217;s Miami break, it draws Patil into details of her past that she would rather not discuss.

Determining what is protocol and what is not can be discretionary. Those in high office show their suitability for the job by exhibiting an instinct for doing the right thing. It is an informed instinct on which the presidency of India has rested these past decades. Pratibha Patil needs to demonstrate it.