Mr Controversy: Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi in familiar territory

On July 5, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai made a statement.

“Governor talking politics means it is targeting DMK and that it is ‘fine for the BJP’ is not our stand. The governor should restrict himself to the responsibilities given to him,” said the combative ex-IPS officer, who is trying to resurrect the saffron party’s fortunes in the state.

Coming from Annamalai, this made heads turn.

The trigger for this ‘reminder’ was the bizarre episode that took place on June 29, featuring the capricious Governor R N Ravi.

Also Read | Ravi 'unfit' to continue as Governor: Stalin tells President Murmu

Ravi unilaterally dismissed V Senthil Balaji from the Cabinet without Chief Minister M K Stalin’s recommendation. It was, by all accounts, an unprecedented move. A miffed Stalin blasted the governor and indicated that he would go to court.

As the media scrambled to make sense of what had happened, just hours later, Ravi did a U-turn and said he would keep the decision in “abeyance”; and the governor did so on the “advice” of Home Minister Amit Shah.

Ravi wanted Balaji out as he was under arrest in a corruption case and had earlier asked Stalin to sack him, but the latter would have none of it. Shah’s intervention saved the Modi government and Raj Bhavan from certain embarrassment as the issue would have landed in the SC.

Even by the current standards of controversy-chasing governors under the Modi regime, the 71-year-old seems a class apart.

Also Read | Governors shouldn’t talk politics: Annamalai

Known for abrasive administrative manoeuvres, Ravi has never been found to take a step back. His eventful tenures in Nagaland and Tamil Nadu bear testimony to it: the NSCN (IM) accused him of deception and “mischief” in the peace process and Stalin has called him “unfit” to be governor.

“R N Ravi messed up Naga peace talks,” senior Congress MP Manickam Tagore told DH. “Now, he is creating trouble in Tamil Nadu. Amit Shah himself admitted that Ravi erred. He is committing mistake after mistake and the prime minister and the home minister are covering it up. Why are Modi and Shah scared to take action against him?”

Indeed, when it comes to the bespectacled governor, there are more questions than answers.

A post-graduate in physics, Patna-born Ravi entered the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1976 when he was just 24 years old after a brief stint in journalism. The stern gaze that Ravi wears at times seems like a remnant from his cop days.

Ravi subsequently moved to the CBI and, later, to the Intelligence Bureau, where he worked in all theatres of insurgency — Jammu and Kashmir, Maoist-affected regions and the northeast — and retired as Special Director in 2012.

After retirement, Ravi became a columnist. Sources say his articulation of strategies related to insurgency and other security issues attracted Modi’s attention.

The Tamil Nadu Raj Bhavan website says Ravi has “played crucial roles” in conflict resolutions in areas affected by ethnic insurgencies and brought several armed rebel groups into peace. “He was the architect of India’s international cooperation in counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing,” it goes on to add.

‘Dynamics of human migration in South Asia’ and ‘political sociology of border population’ are, apparently, Ravi’s other interests.

If all this is true, it befuddles the mind as to how he allegedly damaged the Naga peace talks.

Soon after Modi came to power in 2014, Ravi was appointed the Chairman of Joint Intelligence Committee in the Prime Minister’s Office. Within months, Modi named him the Centre’s interlocutor for the Naga peace talks.

A year after his appointment as the Naga interlocutor, Ravi signed the framework agreement with NSCN(IM) to take the peace process to its logical conclusion. In August 2019, he would double up as the Nagaland governor and interlocutor, as the Modi regime put a premium on closing the deal.

But things didn’t go according to script. Ravi, sources claimed, rubbed the players the wrong way. He played favourites and ended up losing the trust of Naga rebels, mainstream politicians and the civil society.

In a scathing indictment, NSCN(IM) said that all the hard work of 23 years under six prime ministers was coming to a “nauseating end because of the mischief that keeps boiling in the hands of this interlocutor who has become more a liability than anything”.

With things falling apart, the Modi government packed off Ravi to Tamil Nadu. Journalists of the Kohima Press Club boycotted his farewell function, signalling how unpopular he had become.

But if one thought the Nagaland debacle would contain the worst impulses of the governor, everyone was in for a rude shock.

Ravi has been firing on all cylinders since he landed in Tamil Nadu about two years ago.

Among the laundry list of controversies he has found himself include renaming Tamil Nadu as Tamizhagam, sitting on at least two dozen Bills, referring the Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict A G Perarivalan’s remission plea to the President without consulting the state government and skipping certain portions from the governor’s address prepared by the Stalin government.

With Annamalai finally raising the red flag, the question is, will Ravi listen to his wise counsel?