The last directive

President Pranab Mukherjee’s posthumous book is a masterclass on the Constitution

- MANDIRA NAYAR

It was Republic Day in 2013. President Pranab Mukherjee had prepared a speech that dealt with the Nirbhaya rape and murder case. But prime minister Manmohan Singh gently advised against an elaboration of the incident. “Given the prevailing situation, I thought it was a wise suggestion and accepted it,’’ Mukherjee writes in his posthumous book The Presidential Years. “Barring this speech, I never had issues with the UPA government in my other speeches.”

The horrific crime, he writes, “had troubled my conscience as well”, but as president, he needed to “demonstrate calm and dignity”. The book, which was at the centre of a controversy when Mukherjee’s son tried to block its printing, is a masterclass on the Constitution. Mukherjee speaks his mind in his usual professorial, almost grandfatherly, manner. His concerns as president, which are peppered throughout his speeches, are dealt with in the book; they include disruption of Parliament, disintegration of the question hour, the legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru being under threat and concerns about the environment. He also writes that he was not “enthused” by the scrapping of the Planning Commission, but he did not wish to rake up a controversy by opposing it publicly. “I personally feel it was a mistake, a blunder,” he writes.