HISTORY OF THE PRESIDENCY

Rajendra Prasad
(1884-1963)
Term of Office | January 26, 1950 to May 13, 1962
First President of independent India. A freedom fighter, Rajendra Prasad was the only
president to serve two terms in office

Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan
(1888-1975)
Term of Office | May 13, 1962 to May 13, 1967
A prominent philosopher, writer, a Knight of the Realm who held the position of
vicechancellor of Andhra University and Banaras Hindu University. He was also made a
Knight of the Golden Army of Angels by Pope Paul VI

Zakir Husain (1897-1969)

Term of Office | May 3, 1967 to May 3, 1969
He was vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and a recipient of the Padma
Vibhushan and Bharat Ratna. Husain died before his term of office ended
Shri Varahagiri Venkata Giri
(1894-1980)
Term of Office | May 3, 1969 to July 20, 1969 and August 24, 1969 to August 24, 1974
The only person to have the distinction of serving as both acting president and President of
India. V V Giri was a recipient of the Bharat Ratna, and his previous positions included
minister of labour and high commissioner to Ceylon (Sri Lanka)

Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed

(1905-1977)
Term of Office | August 24, 1974 to February 11, 1977
A veteran politician, he held various cabinet posts including food & agriculture, education,
industrial development, etc. He died in 1977 before his term ended, and was the second
president to have died in office

Neelam Sanjiva Reddy (1913-1996)

Term of Office | July 25, 1977 to July 25, 1982
N S Reddy was the first CM of Andhra Pradesh. He was the only MP from Janata Party to get
elected from Andhra. He was unanimously elected Speaker of the Lok Sabha on March 26,
1977 and relinquished this office on July 13, 1977 to become the 6th President of India
Giani Zail Singh
(1916-1994)
Term of Office | July 25, 1982 to July 25, 1987
Zail Singh served as Punjab CM and later as Union home minister in the Indira Gandhi
government

R Venkataraman
(1910-2009)
Term of Office | July 25, 1987 to July 25, 1992
A former freedom fighter, he first served as minister of finance and industry and later as
minister of defence

Shankar Dayal Sharma

(1918-1999)
Term of Office | July 25, 1992 to July 25, 1997
Sharma had been chief minister of MP, and then Union minister for communications. He also
served as the governor of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra. As vice-president, broke
down in the Rajya Sabha while witnessing an ugly row by the members
K R Narayanan (1920-2005)
Term of Office | July 25, 1997 to July 25, 2002
India’s first Dalit president. Served as India’s ambassador to Thailand, Turkey, China and the
US. Regarded as an independent president who set several precedents and enlarged the scope
of the highest constitutional office

A P J Abdul Kalam
(born 1931)
Term of Office | July 25, 2002 to July 25, 2007
Eminent scientist and visionary who played a leading role in the development of India’s
ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes. Kalam also received the Bharat
Ratna and has
authored 4 books

Pratibha Patil
(born 1934)
Term of Office | July 25, 2007 -
Patil is the first woman to become the President of India. She was also the first woman
Governor of Rajasthan. In 2009, Patil followed Kalam’s precedent and flew in a fighter
aircraft
10 laws that shaped THE REPUBLIC
The rule of law is a fundamental requirement for the success of liberal
democracy. But laws are not carved in stone; they can, and do,
change to reflect changing times and new realities. TOI presents
some milestones of Indian legislation in the last 60 years — and
the landmark tussles over them between the three organs of the
State

Manoj Mitta

In the beginning, laws were about laying the Republic’s infrastructure. As it

matured over the years, laws reflected the sophistication of its superstructure. If
a law passed in the early years was meant to realize the basic promise of holding
free and fair elections, a recent one was designed to make the system more
transparent and accountable. The evolution of laws tells its own tale about the
60-year-old Republic.
1. Fleshing out democracy
The Election Commission of India was constituted on January 25, 1950, just a
day before the Constitution came into force. It is no coincidence that the Indian
republic’s first major legislative measure was to implement its Constitutional
commitment to usher in universal adult franchise. What has fleshed out the
world’s biggest ever experiment in democracy is a set of two laws bearing the
same name, which was borrowed from Britain, the Representation of the People
Acts 1950 and 1951.
While the 1950 Act laid down the procedure and machinery for preparing
electoral rolls and demarcating constituencies, the 1951 Act did the same for
conducting elections, from their notification to the declaration of results. In the
many amendments that have since been made to the two RP Acts, the
canvassing period, for instance, has been reduced from a month to a fortnight.
2. Shielding agrarian
reforms
The first Constitutional amendment, piloted by Nehru in 1951, effected far-
reaching changes in diverse areas. First, it imposed “reasonable restrictions” on
the freedom of speech and expression and the freedom to practice any
profession or carry on any occupation, trade or business. Second, overturning a
judicial verdict against reservations, it introduced a clause clarifying that any
special provision that the state might make for the educational, social or
economic advancement of any backward class could not be challenged on the
ground of being discriminatory.
Given the priority then of dismantling the zamindari system, the most
politically sensitive aspect of the first Constitutional amendment was the
introduction of the Ninth Schedule to insulate agrarian reforms from legal
challenge. The Ninth Schedule served very well as a shield to the various land
reforms laws passed by states in the first three decades after Independence.
3. Reforming Hindu customs
When Ambedkar introduced his comprehensive Hindu Code Bill in Parliament
in February 1951, there was such opposition to it that he resigned as law
minister within seven months. It was only after it won the first Lok Sabha
elections in 1952 did the Nehru government muster the courage to revive the
Hindu reform agenda, that too in the form of piecemeal legislation.
Even so, the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 was revolutionary as it outlawed
polygamy and introduced the concept of divorce in a community that believed
that marriage was a sacrament which bound a couple together birth after birth.
Equally significant, the Hindu Succession Act 1956 conferred full ownership on
women for their share of the family property rather than the limited rights that
had been traditionally given.
4.Taking on untouchability
For all the social reforms made during colonial rule, the Constitution abolished
untouchability for the first time. The Republic took another five years to back the
abolition with a law that penalizes various manifestations of untouchability, the
Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955. Since this law was however confined to
instances of caste prejudice and discrimination, the Rajiv Gandhi government
came up with the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of
Atrocities) Act 1989 to deal with the more violent caste-driven offences.
Despite the poor record of their enforcement, the very enactment of the two
untouchability-related laws had its own symbolic value. India has been flogging it
to counter efforts before the UN to treat caste as a form of human rights
violations.
5. Redrawing the political map
The seventh Constitutional amendment enacted in 1956 introduced the concepts
of linguistic states and Union territories, both of which have stood the test of
time. Though the demand for linguistic states was widespread, the impetus came
from the fatal hunger strike of Potti Sreeramulu in 1952 for carving out Andhra
state from the Telugu-speaking districts of the composite Madras state.
The formation of the Andhra state in 1953 was followed by the appointment of
the States Reorganization Commission (SRC), which did not however agree with
the idea of redrawing boundaries purely on linguistic basis. Though SRC
recommended the formation of a separate Telangana state with Hyderabad as its
capital, the government, bowing to the pressure of Andhra leaders, merged the
two Telugu-speaking regions in 1956 to create Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, though
SRC recommended that Bombay remain a composite state encompassing
Gujarati and Marathi speaking districts, the government yielded in 1960 to the
demand for creating Maharashtra by merging all the Marathi speaking districts.
6. Checking defections
After bagging the largest ever majority in the 1984 election held under the
shadow of Indira Gandhi’s murder and the subsequent massacre of Sikhs, Rajiv
Gandhi came up with the long overdue anti-defection law, in the form of the
52nd Constitutional amendment in 1985. But it only made defections harder, not
impossible. Politicians exploited the loophole that recognized a defection by at
least onethird of the members of a legislature party as a split.
The Vajpayee government plugged this loophole with the 91st Constitutional
amendment in 2003. The only way defections can now take place is through the
merger route, when at least twothirds of the members of a legislature party
agree to its merger with another.
7. Special law for Muslims
This law is widely believed to have triggered a chain of events that undermined
secularism: Rise of Hindutva, revival of BJP, outbreaks of communal violence,
demolition of Babri Masjid and terrorism. For, when the Rajiv Gandhi government
came up with the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986, it
was seen as an attempt to appease Muslim fundamentalists by overturning the
Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case.
While the court rendered a Muslim husband liable to pay maintenance to his
deserted wife, the law enacted in the wake of the judgment gave the man the
option of making a one-time provision within three months for her lifetime
depending on his economic status. Ironically, for all the calumny heaped on this
special law, the benefits received under it by Muslim women in many cases have
turned out to be far greater than they could possibly have got under the secular
law.
8. Grassroots democracy
The Gandhian dream of Gram Swaraj (village self-governance) entered the
realm of possibility in 1992 when the Narasimha Rao government pushed
through the 73rd Constitutional amendment. Panchayati Raj, which had for
decades been ad hoc and notoriously bereft of powers and funds, suddenly
acquired Constitutional trappings.
Besides taking democracy to the grassroots, the Panchayati Raj law
demonstrated the efficacy of reserving one-third of the constituencies for
women, a provision that has been repeatedly blocked in the case of the two
higher layers of governance. It was also closely followed by the 74th
Constitutional amendment to institutionalize Nagar Palikas in urban areas.
9. Piercing the veil of secrecy
If this law enacted barely five years ago has put even the Chief Justice of India
on the defensive, that too repeatedly, there can be no better measure of the
extent of its impact. Not surprising, given that the Right to Information Act 2005
is acknowledged as one of the most progressive transparency laws in the world.
Besides specifying the limited organizations and categories of information
exempted from its purview, RTI provided for independent appellate bodies and
penalties for errant officials.
But the Manmohan Singh government, instead of basking in the glory of its
enactment, has already made two abortive attempts to dilute it. It is increasingly
clear to rulers that whoever opposes RTI is on the wrong side of history.
10. Welfare on steroids
No list of India’s seminal laws can be complete without the National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) 2005. For, this law, recently renamed after
Mahatma Gandhi, is undoubtedly the most ambitious welfare scheme in the 60-
year history of the Republic. The security of guaranteed employment for 100
days in a year to every rural household volunteering to do unskilled manual work
has shown the greatest potential as an anti-poverty measure.
 If Rajasthan can claim credit to have pioneered RTI before it was adopted at
the national level, Maharashtra is the progenitor of the concept of guaranteed
rural employment. There is happy synergy between the two major enactments of
the Manmohan Singh government.
RTI is being used by activists as a safeguard to prevent intermediaries from
diverting or misusing NREGA funds.