Is the ban necessary?

In striking down government advertisements that may help build personality cults around political leaders, the Supreme Court may have revealed a proclivity towards being pro-active. The sweeping recommendations, in the form of guidelines, leave room for a loophole by excluding from the ban photographs of the Prime Minister, the President, the Chief Justice of India and departed leaders. If the inclusion of the head of the federal executive wing is permitted, states are bound to be peeved over why their chief ministers have to be excluded because they are also heads of the executive wing of government.

The patriarch of the DMK, veteran politician M. Karunanidhi, has raised the point that a Chief Minister, being the most important figure in a state, should not be included in the photograph ban. What makes his argument stronger is that he is not even in power and so cannot hope to draw any mileage from government advertisements. The issue he raises, of a federal set-up in which the chief ministers play an important role, is not to be dismissed. The question of whether the possibility of a personality cult building around one person is permissible is also significant since the Prime Minister is also from a political party whose legislators elect him.

The appointment of a three-member ombudsman to be filled with persons of unimpeachable integrity, etc. sounds fine in principle. The possible misuse of government advertisements as electoral propaganda is a different matter altogether. The point is whether extreme regulation is necessary. However, the ruling does not take away the right of governments to continue to publicise their schemes.