Ram Nath Kovind is well positioned to defend the Constitution

Ram Nath Kovind elected as 14th President of India

Ram Nath Kovind’s overwhelming victory in the presidential polls offers a unique opportunity to test the head of state’s role as a defender of constitutional values. Mr Kovind’s detractors have suggested that, as with some previous presidential appointments, his credentials as a ruling party stalwart and his Dalit status will encourage him to conform to a template that sees the President’s role as purely ceremonial and essentially subordinate to the executive, the casualty of Indira Gandhi’s notorious Emergency-era 42nd Amendment of 1976. They would be wrong for two reasons. 

First, as a lawyer who has practised in the high court