News18: New Delhi: Wednesday, September 11, 2019.
During the 68th plenary session of the North Eastern Council (NEC) on Sunday in
Guwahati, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, among notable issues related
to trade, investment, tourism and connectivity, proposed the establishment of a
presidential retreat in one of the eight states of the region. The NEC, which
is the nodal agency for the economic and social development of the Northeast,
has received its highest budgetary allotment of Rs 1,476 crore for the financial year
2019-20.
“One presidential retreat in
the Northeast will give the people of the region a greater sense of pride,”
Sonowal said, suggesting that the NEC may take the lead in this matter.
A
presidential retreat is a guesthouse where the president of the country spends
two weeks or more a year. Presently, there are two retreats – one in Hyderabad
and another in Shimla.
“The
location of ‘The Retreat Building’ in Shimla and the ‘Rashtrapati Nilayam’ in
Hyderabad are indicative of the integrative role of the Office of the President
of India in our country. These locations, one in north and another in south,
symbolise unity of our country and unity of our diverse cultures and people,”
reads the President of India website.
However,
according to the response to a Right to Information (RTI) Act plea filed in 2011,
the President visited the Shimla retreat just once and the one in Hyderabad
five times between 2006 and 2011. This information, a BBC report says, is
related to four years under the-then president Pratibha Patil and a year under
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.
The
2011 RTI response revealed that at Shimla alone, the annual wages of the 13
gardeners and members of the caretaker staff totaled around Rs 30 lakh in that
time. Besides, at the Rashtrapati Nilayam in Hyderabad, as many as 35
contractual and three regular workers were employed. All this is in addition to
the number of police personnel deployed at the retreats.
Despite
the state head’s not-so-regular visits to these guesthouses, the government
maintains the properties in Shimla and Hyderabad to match the standards of the
Rashtrapati Bhavan – the office and home of the President of India.
Strategic
‘retreat’ from NRC heat?
Sonowal’s
request to home minister Amit Shah, who also heads the NEC, and Jitendra Singh,
minister of state for development of the north-eastern region, for the
presidential retreat comes close on the heels of the implementation of the
National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. The exercise, which identified 19
lakh people as non-citizens, has left the region simmering with Manipur announcing
that it will follow the example.
“We
and many of the states in the Northeast need NRC. The Manipur government has
already taken a decision in the cabinet to have NRC,” Manipur chief minister N
Biren Singh told reporters on the sidelines of the North-East Democratic
Alliance (NEDA) conclave in Guwahati on Monday.
Adding
to anxieties is the BJP’s commitment to re-introduce the Citizenship
(Amendment) Bill in Parliament. During the NEDA conclave, the chief ministers
of Nagaland and Meghalaya expressed apprehensions regarding the legislation.
Detractors fear the Bill could alter the demography of the Northeast.
At
a time like this, rival parties don’t appear too keen on the idea of a
presidential retreat for the region. The Congress’s Debabrata Saikia,
opposition leader in the Assam assembly, has slammed the BJP-led state
government for the proposal. He correlated the existence of the retreats with a
colonial mindset and the high-handedness of tea garden owners.
“During
the British era, the owners of big tea gardens in Assam lived in England. They
were administrating the tea gardens from far away instead of living among the
workers. But all garden owners had big lavish bungalows in the state. Today, in
the age of global connectivity, why does the President need a retreat
elsewhere? Are we going back in time?” he said.
Former
cabinet secretary BK Chaturvedi reminded that the move is very “notional”. It
is meant to say that the government cares for you, he said.
“This
move should have been done in the early 1980s and 1990s. Now what the region
wants is development of roads, projects and connectivity. My experience in the
government has taught me that such moves don’t lead to growth,” he added.
Chaturvedi
noted that this current thinking of the state governments in the Northeast,
after requests like the retreat, only goes so far. “The priority should be
development,” he said.
Revving
up the growth engine
Home
minister Amit Shah said in Guwahati that the NEDA was not a “political
aspiration” but a platform to unite the “geo-cultural entities” of the
north-eastern states. Speaking at the conclave, he reminded the chief ministers
and governors of the eight states that the BJP “considers the Northeast the new
engine of Indian growth”.
“For
us, the region is not a political destination but a development destination,”
he said. However, against the backdrop of recent political and social
developments in the region, the pitch for a retreat may be a strategic move.
Assam’s
request for establishing India’s third presidential retreat in the Northeast is
not the first. In June, Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma had also urged
Prime Minister Narendra Modi to establish a retreat in Shillong.
The
retreat “will ensure that the President visits the region every year for two
weeks”, giving out “a strong message of inclusiveness and important of the
region”, he said.
However,
in a sharp critique, Saikia told News18 that the Congress is “not bothered with
a presidential retreat,” and seeks development instead.
“The
Centre should consider giving funds for roads, irrigation and drinking water,
instead of wasting public money on building grand homes. The region is in need
of practical, field-level fund allocation,” he said.
Sangma’s
request for a retreat in Shillong is significant considering his demands for
the Centre to invite all stakeholders to discuss and arrive at a consensus on
the Citizenship Bill issue. “We are under the sixth schedule. So will the CAB
overlook local laws?” he asked the home minister at the conclave.
Prashenjit
Biswas, an academic based in Assam, told News18 that the request for the
presidential retreat is of “symbolic character for the region” given the many
political underpinnings, and has “no impact on the ground realities of NE”.
“Having
a retreat in NE may connect itself to President’s Rule, it may connect itself
to some ordinance-based rule in the region. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act
(AFSPA) is extended by an ordinance,” he said, referring to the many meanings
this move may have.
Biswas
added that the retreat may not give the region any additional advantage because
India does not follow a presidential style of governance. “This idea of
presidential retreat doesn’t fit with our Constitution. It is precisely
extra-constitutional,” he argued.
Biswas
said the region can rather propose the establishment of a parliamentary session
in the north-eastern region. “Under colonial rule, the viceroy’s retreat was in
Shimla,” he pointed out. “The concept of presidential retreat is a colonial and
military one. We have moved out of it in 1947. Why is the state government
planning to return to it when we have a parliament now?”