Is the Governor a Puppet? The BPSC Paper That Started a Constitutional Crisis

In July 2019, Question 2 of the Bihar Public Service Commission Mains paper asked candidates to critically examine whether the Governor of Bihar was "a mere puppet (kathputli)." The exam hall had never felt so politically alive.

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On 14 July 2019, hundreds of aspirants gathered in Patna to write the 64th BPSC Mains — the General Studies paper that determines who will join the Indian Administrative and Police Services in Bihar.

They flipped to Question 2.

"Critically examine the role of the Governor in state politics in India, particularly in Bihar. Is he a mere puppet (kathputli)?"

The hall went very quiet.

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The Problem with the Question

On its surface, this is a legitimate constitutional law question. The extent of gubernatorial discretionary power versus the Council of Ministers is a classic debate in Indian polity. It appears in NCERT textbooks and in every serious IAS preparation guide.

The problem was the word kathputli — Hindustani for "puppet" — tucked in there, in bold, referring to the sitting Governor of Bihar, a constitutional office-holder appointed by the President of India.

Writing that the Governor was indeed a mere puppet risked antagonising the establishment. Writing that he was not a puppet meant either abandoning the entire historiography of India's gubernatorial controversies, or lying on a public service examination.

Several candidates, according to post-exam accounts, stared at the question for several minutes, wondering if answering honestly would hurt their scores, before writing carefully diplomatic hedging essays that neither affirmed nor denied the kathputli theory.

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The Political Firestorm

Within hours of the question paper leaking on social media, Bihar's political class had opinions:

• Opposition parties praised the question as bold and refreshingly honest.
• Ruling alliance ministers called it "constitutionally disrespectful" and demanded immediate action.
• Legal commentators pointed out that asking state government aspirants to call their future constitutional superior a puppet was, at minimum, unusually candid as an examination prompt.

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BPSC's Response

The Bihar Public Service Commission moved quickly to contain the fallout. They issued a formal expression of regret, served a show-cause notice to the university professor responsible for setting the question, and permanently blacklisted them from future BPSC question-setting panels.

The question itself, however, was retained for grading — since discarding it would have penalised candidates who had already answered it in good faith.

Thousands of Bihar's future administrators were thus assessed, in part, on how diplomatically they could argue about a sitting Governor's constitutional subservience to elected politicians.

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Timeline: INC-ABS-2019-BR-016

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Sources & Further Reading

1. "BPSC exam paper asks if Bihar Governor is a 'puppet'" — The Indian Express, 15 July 2019. indianexpress.com
2. "BPSC pulls up paper-setter for calling Governor puppet in exam question" — NDTV, 15 July 2019. ndtv.com
3. "The Bihar civil services paper that asked if the Governor is a puppet" — Scroll.in, July 2019. scroll.in