History may record it as a “Presidential Voice in the Wilderness”. Yet history will also note that Pranab Mukherjee was not deterred, nor reluctant, to speak out even when it was apparent that few in government, or positions of allied influence, cared to heed the core of his messages.

For while he has been advocating a liberal, open-minded society, the only “tolerance” displayed by some senior members of the NDA government is that they have not openly joined issue with him.

They have probably done worse: contemptuously ignored his exhortations. Not surprisingly there is a fire raging though our university campuses over what is mischievously being projected as a debate on “nationalism” — actually a case of shut up or get beaten-up if you do not adhere to the saffronised version of that noble concept.

With a similar theme being articulated in the polity-dividing electoral campaign in UP: while the official claim is that the people are being asked to vote for development, in reality the argument has boiled down to whether burials should be prohibited so that precious land is conserved, wild asses, etc.

Sadly, the Election Commission has proved utterly ineffective in keeping the poll process pristine. With the result that sanity is unlikely to be restored to the national conversation after March 11, and the people will have to live with the “legitimisation” of rape and death threats to a young student who dared speak her mind — one member of the ministerial council claiming psychic powers to contend that the soul of her military-martyr father would not be resting in peace after the utterances of his daughter. How low have we sunk?

The President remained aloof from ugly specifics, but it took little reading between-the-lines to discern his disgust and anguish when he delivered the KS Rajamony Memorial Lecture in Kochi. Rather, he added emphasis to his message by exhorting citizens to live by the Constitution which “enshrines certain timeless values that should never be compromised.”

Noting the unrest on the campus, Mukherjee observed that “These temples of learning must resound with creativity and free thinking. Those in Universities must engage in reasoned discussion and debate rather than propagate a culture of unrest.

It is tragic to see them caught in the vortex of violence and disquiet”. He flayed the events in the Tamil Nadu legislature, “floor tests are not meant to be muscle tests”. His powerful punch-line was that “No one who holds elected office has been invited by the voters… Each one has gone to the voters and pleaded for their votes and support. The trust placed by the people in the political system and those elected should not be betrayed.”