Beware the ghost of Zail Singh

Today Pranab Mukherjee will be sworn in as the 13th President of the Indian republic. Somehow it is not easy to stub out a premonition that his presidency will end up creating a miasma of constitutional and political unhappiness. The troublesome thought recurs around an unaccustomed — and, essentially, unanswerable — question: can a 24x7 politician painlessly switch gears overnight to become a copybook constitutional head of the republic? Can a man joyfully steeped in the soul-crushing manoeuvres...

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