High Office And Sequel

Precedents already exist, even in the post-1989 period, of governors serving more than one term in Jammu and Kashmir, though two successive stints in the state’s Raj Bhavan for the present occupant does stand out in immediate memory. For over a decade-and-a-half since the beginning of the nineties, gubernatorial incumbents here have been in absolute charge along with the army during a period of unprecedented turmoil and bloodshed, and had, therefore, been drawn from intelligence or military backgrounds – a trend that continued well after purported civilian rule was restored. The appointment of NN Vohra, a seasoned bureaucrat and deemed to be something of an expert on Kashmir, was a change, and thought by many to be a welcome development for the region’s trouble-torn and troublesome politics. On this count precisely, and expectations thereof, his role over the past five years remains an enigma. Mr. Vohra’s appointment nearly five years ago was thought to be mandated around the Kashmir issue on which many believed he could play a behind-the-scenes negotiator or mediator. Such views were strengthened by his credentials of having engaged in the past with leaderships outside the electoral process. But all of this has remained confined to the realm of speculation only, because Governor Vohra has stuck to a very straight and very narrow text-book role. He must have been spectacularly discreet if at all he has dabbled in the intractable politics of the Kashmir issue.  

For three consecutive years after he assumed office, Kashmir was rocked by unexpected turbulence in which hundreds of lives were lost, but the governor largely maintained a studied public silence as the police and the paramilitary forces went about their fatal business.  It is not clear how a few timely words of censure could have impaired his position as the representative of the Indian state and custodian of constitutional rectitude.  The aplomb with which the present incumbent has discharged obligations of office by directing words of wisdom at those turned to hear at the numerous functions he has graced since speak of enviable imperturbability. One wonders whether an additional tenure has come his way just for a cultivated inability to offend anyone, or for an unknown, unobtrusive, but key role in weighty matters of state. That many quarters, public as well official, prefer to call at the Raj Bhavan with their issues rather than importune the dispensation of the day cannot entirely be attributed to the vestigial nature of the state government. It speaks volumes of the governor’s sanitised approach that the entire so-called mainstream camp in Kashmir should be purring with approbation at his re-appointment. Even with state elections scheduled for next year, and an inordinately re-extended Amarnath Yatra round the corner, the union government’s decision to hand Mr Vohra a second term could have more in the background than his undeniably deft administrative calibre.

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