A quick rant on Bharat Ratna
Bharath Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, is given to individuals who reach the highest level of accomplishment in any field of human endeavour. It more often reflects the objectives (political and otherwise) of the regime of the day.
In the 1990s, the Narasimha Rao government awarded the Bharat Ratna to industrialist JRD Tata to signal its commitment to the pro-business, pro-market shift it was making.
Similarly, Rajiv Gandhi was conferred the highest civilian award to please his widow, Sonia Gandhi, whose support mattered for Mr Rao for his political survival.
The Manmohan Singh government conferred the Bharat Ratna to Sachin Tendulkar immediately after retirement to capitalise on his goodwill amongst the masses. Going by the criteria of Bharath Ratna, Tendulkar is eminently qualified for the honour. Undoubtedly, he was one of the greatest in his chosen area of endeavour. But nothing in him that puts him in the same league as Rajagopalachari, Visvesvaraya, Mother Teresa, or K Kamraj. He never transcended becoming a champion of bigger causes or philanthropic initiatives like Muhammad Ali or Imran Khan, who has fallen from grace in his cynical pursuit of power.
No one can question conferring Bharat Ratna to MS Swaminathan, who, with C Subramaniam, was the principal architect of the green revolution. The only question is why it took so long to honour Swaminathan when Subramaniam was awarded the Bharat Ratna 26 years back. Why are the regimes keen to fete the politician and ignore the technocrat? Why is Manmohan Singh, the other architect of economic reforms, ignored when Rao is honoured?
This year’s Bharat Ratna awards also reflect the current regime’s efforts to appropriate the three themes that have dominated Indian politics since the 1990s: Mandal (social justice), mandir (ramjanmabhoomi movement), and market (economic liberalisation).
Karpoori Thakur is known for introducing a bold reservation scheme for the marginalised classes in government jobs. The decision to award Thakur when the opposition is batting for caste census is no coincidence. Similarly, Advani’s biggest contribution was communalising politics by cynically appropriating the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
The Rath Yatra, which Advani led, sparked a chain of events over three decades, which has deprived India of its potential to become the paragon of pluralism to a country where large sections are high on hate and obsessed with righting “historical wrongs”. Today, we have the tragicomic situation of witnessing people who scream they don’t care about price rise or unemployment as long as mosques are razed and religious minorities are bullied. And those who condemn bigotry are accused of being bigoted. And are gaslighted for reminding fellow citizens that the Babri masjid was razed in the same vicious manner as the Ram temple, which stood in its place, and it sparked a series of riots where people slit each other’s throats in the name of their chosen God.
Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister when India was in the midst of an economic crisis and insurgencies in Punjab and Kashmir. By the time he left office, there was a semblance of solution to the multiple crises his government inherited. But one cannot forget that he was the home minister directly responsible for the security of the national capital during the anti-Sikh riots in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. And that his party badly sidelined him after he stepped down from its leadership. The award is an honour for his contributions and a jibe at this party, which disowned him.
The awards also reveal that the current regime is good at appropriating even those issues and individuals it detests, and Congress is alienating what is rightfully theirs.
