Power is a curious idea. For some, as the chairman of the Chinese communist party famously said, and as the leader of Bengal’s own native communist party seems to agree, it emanates from the barrel of a gun. But for others, as with Krishna in the Mahabharata, power lay in its very denial. Despite being an ancient civilization, India is also a young democracy. Many of the practices of public life lack the restraint they deserve.

Consider the governor of West Bengal, Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi. In the brief period he has been in office, he has shown exemplary restraint. Yet he chose to blot his copybook performance with an uncharacteristic emotional outburst on the tragic events in Nandigram. The division of power between the State and the government carries with it the burden of impotence. Constitutional monarchy is not only about the inability but also about the unwillingness to act. The head of the State advises his government in private and, as the film, The Queen, reveals, also receives counsel in private. Mr Tony Blair’s advice to Her Majesty and the latter’s willingness to act on it perhaps saved the British monarchy from an unfortunate demise in the aftermath of Diana’s death. In expressing his sentiments publicly, Mr Gandhi has irreparably damaged an institution which is but fledgling in India. Few eyebrows would have been raised had the present governor been a discredited politician. Unfortunately, he is a distinguished public servant who has consciously striven to raise the moral tone of governance. By this unthinking act he has created a regrettable precedence which may serve as a moral beacon to less-principled inheritors of his office.

There have been other fallouts of the Nandigram violence. In a strident judgment, the Calcutta high court ordered the CBI to probe the police firing. The court described the firing as “wholly indefensible and wholly unconstitutional”. An elected government, responsible for law and order, has thus been pronounced guilty before it has placed its own report and version of events. The Telegraph yields to none in its respect for the judiciary. But it feels compelled to express its difference. First, the court has given its pronouncements suo motu. The idea of a judgment given suo motu is contentious at best. The role of the court is to arbitrate in disputes between two or more parties after hearing the arguments on all sides. In a suo motu judgment, the court assumes the mantle of the accuser. Such action is held valid by most judiciaries in the world. But many, including this paper, have been uncomfortable with the idea. Distinguished judges such as Lord Denning have spoken about the need to use extreme restraint while using the powers of suo motu orders and the laws of contempt. The second point at issue is executive privilege. It is important not to blur the dividing lines between the judiciary, the executive and the legislature. Judicial activism, by definition, tends to encroach. Like other organs of civil society, the judiciary should hold itself up for occasional introspection and consider whether restraint is actually the better part of intellectual valour.