Four of the five gubernatorial changes announced on Monday are clearly an offshoot of Mrs. Gandhi’s decision to shift Mr. BK Nehru from Srinagar. In a sense, this is not a surprise move. The Jammu and Kashmir unit of the Congress party has been unhappy with Mr. Nehru. Indeed, it has openly said that he has failed to do his duty to keep the Centre fully informed of the “misdoings” of the Farooq ministry and that he had made no attempt to “remedy the situation”. This charge figured in a memorandum the party submitted to the President last January. Among the signatories were two Union ministers, Mr. Arif Mohammad Khan and Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad. But in another sense, the move is a surprise. Since the Congress leadership both at the Centre and in the state has in recent weeks toned down its attacks on Dr. Farooq Abdullah, it does not on the face of it, make much sense for Mrs. Gandhi to shift the governor who enjoyed the confidence of the chief minister and was thus in a position to serve as an effective communication channel between him and New Delhi. But the issue is complex and one should not be in a hurry to deliver a judgment on the decision.
It would appear that the Prime Minister feels that in the country’s troubled security environment which inevitably impinges on Jammu and Kashmir and the revival of pro-secessionist elements there, the state needs a governor with a more activist temperament. In that she has made a good choice. Mr. Jagmohan is a doer. So far his field of activity has essentially been urban development. But he can be depended upon to acquaint himself fairly quickly with the intricacies of the politics of Jammu and Kashmir and with problems relating to its security, internal as well as external. Under the Constitution, a governor’s role is, of course, different from that of a lieutenant-governor; the latter is invested with vast executive powers. Moreover, in view of the current acrimonious debate on Centre-state relations, a governor has to be doubly careful that he is not seen to be treading on the chief minister’s toes and acting as a hatchet man for the Centre. But in the circumstances of Jammu and Kashmir, his role cannot realistically be merely titular. Dr. Farooq Abdullah would himself recognise this to be the case. The relationship between the governor and the chief minister in Jammu and Kashmir is of necessity a delicate one and requires a great deal of mutual confidence and accommodation.
The same is true in Assam. Though the present chief minister has acquitted himself remarkably well despite the rather limited popular support the Congress party enjoys in the crucially important Brahmaputra valley, the governor’s office is important in the state. This has been always so. That is why New Delhi has in the past sent some of the country’s most distinguished civil servants as governors to Gauhati. Of late, Mrs. Gandhi has for some reasons best known to her preferred politicians for that office. The present choice, Mr. Bhishma Narain Singh, has an equable temperament. But his record as a Union cabinet minister was far from distinguished. Time alone will show whether he can measure up to his new responsibilities.