The Office That Holds All Power — And Uses Almost None of It

New Delhi: The Constitution says the President is the head of state. The first citizen. Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The one who guards the Constitution itself. Article 53 hands the President all executive power of the Union. Article 72 lets the President grant pardons. Every single law in the country gets enacted in the President’s name.

Now look at the palace built for a Viceroy. The 340-room mansion. The 40-acre Mughal Gardens. Bodyguards on horseback. It all looks like power.

Look closer. The power left that building long ago.

Ask an average Indian what the President does. You’ll get a shrug. “The ceremonial head.” “The rubber stamp.”

That shift didn’t happen by accident. It took seven decades of amendments, political practice, and a prime ministerial system that keeps getting stronger. Today, the gap between the presidency of the Constitution and the presidency of reality has never been wider.

What the framers intended

The Constituent Assembly wrestled with this. Should India’s head of state be like the British monarch — a symbol who reigns without ruling? Or like the American president, armed with real executive authority?

They chose the British model. But they left the door slightly ajar.

Article 74(1) originally said the President “shall” act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers. That word “shall” turned out to be a gift for creative interpretation. Some early presidents read it loosely.

Rajendra Prasad, the very first President, went head-to-head with Jawaharlal Nehru over the Hindu Code Bill. Prasad believed he had the right to act independently in some matters. Nehru disagreed fiercely. The clash was never settled in court. But it set the template for every presidency that followed — a president who wants room to move, and a prime minister who sees the office as subordinate.

Ambedkar was clear about what the Assembly wanted. The President, he told the Constituent Assembly in 1949, “has no power to go against the advice of the ministers.” A constitutional figure, not a political one. But the original text had enough gray area that strong-willed presidents kept testing the limits.

The Emergency changed everything

June 1975. Indira Gandhi declared a national Emergency. Civil liberties suspended. Thousands of opposition leaders jailed.

President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the proclamation within hours. No questions. No hesitation.

Critics called his quick assent “a shameful low” for the office. It set a lasting template: when push came to shove, the President would not stand in the way.

The 42nd Amendment: The turning point

After the Emergency, Indira Gandhi’s government passed the 42nd Amendment in 1976. Buried inside its 59 clauses was a small but devastating change to Article 74.

Before this amendment, the Constitution said the President “shall have a Council of Ministers to aid and advise.” After the 42nd Amendment, the President “shall, in the exercise of his functions, act in accordance with such advice.”

What was implicit became binding. The President’s discretion — already narrow — was now legally shut.

The 44th Amendment in 1978, passed by the Janata government, tried to restore balance. It reversed most of the 42nd Amendment’s excesses — except the rewrite of Article 74. Instead, the 44th added a twist: the President could send cabinet advice back for reconsideration. One catch: once Parliament sent it back unchanged, the President had to accept it.

That single line — “act in accordance with such advice” — sealed the presidency’s fate. From that point on, the President could delay but not defy. Advise but not decide. Warn but not block.

Presidents who still said no

Some presidents still pushed back. Their stories are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Rajendra Prasad (1950–1962) argued with Nehru over the Hindu Code Bill and the President’s right to address Parliament independently. He thought about resigning twice. Nehru won both times — not through confrontation, just by being politically heavier. Prasad eventually settled into the ceremonial role.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1962–1967) had intellectual weight that transcended constitutional limits. He used it to influence foreign policy and education. His voice carried because of who he was — philosopher, statesman, former professor — not because the Constitution gave him that power.

Giani Zail Singh (1982–1987) went furthest. His relationship with Rajiv Gandhi was bad from the start. Singh complained the PM wasn’t briefing him on national security — not on Operation Blue Star, not on the Bofors scandal. Things got so tense that Singh considered dismissing the Prime Minister. That would have been an unprecedented, constitutionally explosive act.

In 1986, Parliament passed the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill. It would have let the government open citizens’ mail. Zail Singh neither signed it nor returned it nor rejected it. He just sat on it. Indefinitely. This “pocket veto” — the first and only time an Indian president has used it — killed the bill. It never became law.

But even that came at a price. According to K.C. Singh, who served as deputy secretary to the President, Zail Singh was made to hand over an undated resignation letter before he even took office. His aides later changed the stationery and typewriters of Rashtrapati Bhavan so the letter could be denied if ever produced. The presidency had been compromised before it began.

K.R. Narayanan (1997–2002) set the most important institutional precedents of any president. He delivered speeches the government hadn’t vetted, breaking decades of protocol. When the cabinet recommended President’s Rule in Uttar Pradesh, he sent it back with a blunt note: “I am not a rubber stamp.” The government backed down.

When no party won a clear majority in the 1998 election, he asked Atal Bihari Vajpayee — the BJP leader — to produce letters of support from coalition partners before being appointed PM. Earlier presidents had invited the largest party and let them figure it out. Narayanan demanded proof.

In 1999, Vajpayee lost a confidence motion by one vote. Both Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi staked claim. Neither could show a majority. Narayanan dissolved the Lok Sabha and called fresh elections. His approach — ask for proof, reject vague claims — became the template for how presidents handle hung parliaments.

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (2002–2007) used India’s first “suspensive veto” in 2006. He returned the Office of Profit Bill to Parliament, arguing it would water down disqualification rules for lawmakers. Parliament passed it again, unchanged. Kalam had to give his assent. But returning it in the first place was significant. No president has returned a bill to Parliament since.

Mercy: a tale of two presidents

Article 72 gives the President power to grant pardons and commute death sentences. The numbers tell a stark story.

R. Venkataraman	40	0	40	100%
Shankar Dayal Sharma	14	4	10	71%
K. R. Narayanan	0	0	0	No disposals
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam	2	1	1	50%
Pratibha Patil	22	19	3	13.6%
Pranab Mukherjee	49	7	42	85.7%

Pratibha Patil commuted 86% of petitions that reached her. Pranab Mukherjee rejected 86% of his. R. Venkataraman rejected every single one.

What explains the gap? The President acts on the “aid and advice” of the government. So the disparity reflects the government of the day as much as the President. But the fact that the same constitutional provision produces such wildly different outcomes shows how personal — and political — this office really is.

The deeper erosion

The President’s reduced stature is not one thing. It is several things, working together.

Strong mandate governments have made presidential discretion irrelevant. Since 2014, India has had a single party with a clear Lok Sabha majority. Coalition governments — which gave presidents room to maneuver between 1996–2004 and 2009–2014 — are gone. A president’s discretionary role only matters when nobody has a clear majority. Right now, that space does not exist.

Political capture of the presidency has deepened. Presidential candidates are nominated by the ruling party. Every president since the 1970s has been a political figure — former chief minister, former union minister. The idea of a non-political president — Radhakrishnan the philosopher, Prasad the freedom fighter, Zakir Husain the academic — has been replaced by partisan nominations. And since the ruling party controls enough seats in the electoral college, the outcome is never in doubt.

The 42nd Amendment permanently altered the constitutional balance. Before 1976, a president could argue the Constitution left room for independent action. After 1976, that argument collapsed. Article 74 is now explicit: the President acts on advice. Full stop.

The decline of constitutional debate in public life has pushed the President into the background. Few newspapers cover presidential speeches in full. Fewer citizens can name the current President, let alone recall what she or he said in the last address to Parliament.

The current presidency

Droupadi Murmu took office in July 2022. The 15th President. First Adivasi. Second woman. The ruling BJP’s choice of a tribal woman from Odisha sent a strong signal about inclusiveness.

Once in office, the presidency has run the way it usually does. Ceremonial. Scripted. Quiet.

Murmu has spoken about tribal rights, education, and women’s empowerment. She has hosted foreign dignitaries, addressed the nation on Republic Day and Independence Eve. She has not returned a bill, tested a constitutional boundary, or stepped into a political crisis.

That is not a knock on her. It is the system working the way it was designed. The President does not make news. That is the point.

A comparative view

In Germany, the Federal President gives a televised Christmas address, routinely comments on social issues, and has refused to sign laws he considered unconstitutional.

In Israel, the President holds pardon powers and can task a Knesset member with forming a government — a role that has shaped several coalition governments.

In Singapore, the President has veto power over key financial decisions and the use of national reserves.

In India, the President’s most high-profile annual act is the address to Parliament. A speech written entirely by the government. Read aloud without alteration.

The case for the other side

Not everyone agrees the President’s stature has declined. Some would say the office is doing exactly what the framers intended.

Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly in 1949: “The President occupies the position of the head of the state under the parliamentary system and is the constitutional head. He has no powers to go against the advice of his ministers.”

If you read it that way, the President was never meant to be powerful. The supposed “decline” is just the system maturing. The President is the symbol of national unity. Speeches, ceremonial duties, state visits — that is the job. Not a downgraded version of it.

There is also a case that a ceremonial presidency protects the office from political fire. When Zail Singh tried to flex, he nearly caused a constitutional crisis. When presidents stay above politics, the office keeps its dignity — even without power.

A quiet presidency, defenders would argue, is a healthy presidency.

Reckoning: has India outgrown its President?

Two views compete here.

One: this is working as intended. The President was never meant to be a parallel power centre. A ceremonial head of state — removed from politics, above the fray — provides continuity while the elected government governs. India’s political stability owes something to the fact that no modern president has tried to upstage the Prime Minister.

The other: a presidency that never pushes back, never questions, never uses its reserve powers has lost its constitutional purpose. The checks built into the system — Article 111, Article 72, Article 74’s reconsideration clause — exist for moments when they might matter. If they’re never used, why keep them?

The truth sits somewhere between.

India’s democracy is mature enough that the President rarely needs to intervene. But the capacity for intervention has atrophied. The political class no longer thinks of the President as a potential counterweight. That’s a loss — subtle but real.

Some questions for the years ahead:

Will a future president test Article 74 again? The Constitution says the President acts on Cabinet advice. It does not say the President must act on any advice — including advice that may be unconstitutional. No president has ever tested that line.

Will the electoral college dynamics change? The 2026 delimitation exercise could reshape how states weigh in the presidential election. Not about power — but about who gets to choose the President.

Will public expectations shift? As India gets older as a republic, citizens may demand more from all constitutional offices, including the President. Not through amendments. Through scrutiny.

This is not a dramatic decline. No coup. No constitutional crisis. No midnight knock at Rashtrapati Bhavan’s door.

It is a gentle, gradual shrinking.

The kind where a new appointment prompts more questions about symbolism — first woman, first Dalit, first tribal — than about what the person will do with the office. Where the President attends a yoga event in Jabalpur and opens a handicrafts exhibition, while the government negotiates trade deals and military pacts — without consulting Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Everything is constitutional. Everything by the book.

But something is missing.

The President of India is not irrelevant. He or she swears in governments, receives foreign dignitaries, confers national honours, represents continuity. These are not small things.

But the space for independent presidential action — never wide — has become almost invisible. And the people who occupy the office, by design or by choice, no longer test its boundaries.

The palace remains. The power has moved on.

— IndianYug Analysis Bureau

Sources

• The Constitution of India — Articles 53, 60, 72, 74, 75, 111, 356
• Constituent Assembly Debates (1949)
• K.C. Singh — ‘The Indian President: An Insider’s Account of the Zail Singh Years’ (HarperCollins, 2023)
• BBC News — “What is India’s president actually for?” (July 2017)
• Factly.in — “Different Presidents, Different Decisions: The tale of Mercy Petitions in India”
• The Print — “What caused Giani Zail Singh’s frayed ties with Rajiv Gandhi” (2023)
• The Commonwealth Lawyers Association — “Choosing a Prime Minister in a Hung Parliament”
• Wikipedia — Article 74 of the Constitution of India; S. R. Bommai v. Union of India
• National Herald — “When President Rajendra Prasad bypassed the Cabinet”
• D+C Development and Cooperation — “The ambivalent role of India’s president” (2025)
• President of India official website (presidentofindia.gov.in)