India's top award misses
congeniality By Sudha
Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Ugly wrangling
has broken out over the Bharat Ratna (Jewel of
India), India's highest civilian honor, with
politicians openly lobbying for the award. There
is growing feeling among the public that the
Bharat Ratna, its value degraded over the years,
should be done away with and all state awards
abolished.
Established in 1954, the Bharat
Ratna is awarded in "recognition of exceptional
service towards the advancement of art,
literature, science and public service of the
highest order". In the years since, it has been
conferred on 41 people, including two non-Indians
- Pakistani Gandhian Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan and former
South
African president Nelson Mandela - and a
naturalized Indian citizen, Mother Teresa. Over
half of the award's recipients have been
politicians.
Besides the Bharat Ratna,
India also awards the Padma Vibhushan, Padma
Bhushan and Padma Shri to civilians who excel in
various fields, including the arts, athletics and
various realms of public service. The Bharat Ratna
and the Padma awards are announced annually ahead
of Republic Day, which falls on January 26.
The run-up to the announcements has always
been marked by hectic behind-the-scenes jostling
for the awards. This year the canvassing has
reached a new low. It has been a very public
affair with politicians engaging in a
no-holds-barred fight for the Bharat Ratna. A
"canonize-my-candidate campaign" has gripped
India's political class. Worse, right wing Hindu
groups have unleashed violence to protest the
discussion on a possible contender, a
controversial Muslim painter.
It started
with the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Lal
Krishna Advani shooting off a letter to Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh demanding that the Bharat
Ratna be awarded to BJP patriarch and former prime
minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. That prompted Dalit
leader and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati to
demand that the honor be conferred on her mentor
and partner, the late Kanshiram. Then, Congress
sprang into action and began canvassing for
veteran communist Jyoti Basu.
At last
count, the names of over a dozen politicians -
some aged, others dead - including Karpoori
Thakur, Muthuvel Karunanidhi, Biju Patnaik,
Mulayam Singh Yadav, Chaudhry Charan Singh and
Jagjivan Ram have been put forward by their
parties. None of these nominees are known to have
done "public service of the highest order", which
is what the Bharat Ratna is supposed to honor.
They have engaged in politicking, of course, but
they practiced politics to pursue personal
political ambitions rather than to further the
public good.
It is not just the
unsuitability of the nominations that is
disturbing; it is also the way parties are
lobbying for it to further their political
agendas. Just as Advani is keen to be seen as
having "got" the award for Vajpayee, Congress
would like to score some points with the left
parties for having recommended the communist Basu.
The Bharat Ratna is an honor conferred on an
individual, not a bone to be fought over nor an
entitlement to be demanded in the streets, the
media or even in letters to the prime minister. It
is not an award determined by the public,
political parties or parliament. Unlike the Padma
awards, which are decided by a screening
committee, the Bharat Ratna is the prerogative of
the premier.
Interestingly, prime
ministers have not shied away from awarding it to
themselves. Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi
were still in office when they received the Bharat
Ratna. It is to Vajpayee's credit that he
refrained from honoring himself with the award
when he was prime minister.
The Bharat
Ratna has rarely been far from controversy. It was
awarded to a highly ineffective president, V V
Giri, in 1975, and in 1988, it was awarded to M G
Ramachandran posthumously. Ramachandran was a
popular Tamil actor and a canny politician, but by
no stretch of imagination did he deserve the
Bharat Ratna. Yet the Congress government
conferred the honor on him - with an eye on the
Tamil vote. World famous sitarist Ravi Shankar was
accused of lobbying hard for the award.
The way aspiring Padma awardees work the
system is no less controversial. Loyalists of the
ruling party, as well as their spouses and
friends, figure among the Padma awardees every
year. Prime ministers and presidents have even
expressed their gratitude to their doctors by
gifting Padma awards. In 2001, for instance,
Chittaranjan Ranawat, who had successfully
performed knee replacement surgery on Vajpayee,
was rewarded with the Padma Bhushan.
But
not everyone is enamored with the Bharat Ratna and
the Padma awards. Abul Kalam Azad, freedom fighter
and educationist, refused the Bharat Ratna arguing
that those who selected the awardees should not be
its recipients. After all, he was education
minister at the time. Azad was later awarded the
Ratna posthumously.
Eminent historian
Romila Thapar rejected the Padma Bhushan twice -
in 1992 and 2005. She "would only accept academic
and professional awards", she said expressing her
"sense of unease about these awards". "State
awards have become increasingly mixed up with
government patronage in India," she observed. The
left has repeatedly clarified that its leaders
will not accept state awards.
Incidentally, Mahatma Gandhi was never
awarded the Bharat Ratna. The Mahatma, the
government feels, is above such awards.
Musicians, scientists and social workers
have been honored with the Bharat Ratna in the
past. There are calls from the public for awarding
the Bharat Ratna to a non-politician this year.
The names of industrialist Ratan Tata, cricketer
Sachin Tendulkar and artist Maqbool Fida Husain
are being mentioned.
"A uniquely talented
sportsman like Sachin Tendulkar may not have
performed a public service in the old definition
of the term. But he is able to inspire like no
other, he is a name that from the Pakistan-Afghan
border to Down Under [Australia] is synonymous
with Indian exceptionality and he is beloved of
millions," wrote Sagarika Ghose in Hindustan
Times.
Others have argued that Tendulkar
might be a great cricketer and an inspiring one.
Still, he is "only an entertainer". Besides, some
Indians are not too comfortable with a Bharat
Ratna awardee peddling Pepsi, Adidas and Aviva
Life insurance in television commercials.
Husain's name has evoked considerable
anger among Hindu right wing sections. An eminent
artist, Husain has been awarded the Padma Shree,
the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibushan. In the
1990s, Husain's portrayal of Hindu goddesses in
the nude drew right-wing ire. Under threat from
the Hindu right, he has been living abroad. A
couple of days ago, one such conservative group
attacked offices of the NDTV news channel to
protest an SMS poll featuring Husain as a
contender for the Bharat Ratna.
There is
growing support for doing away with the Bharat
Ratna and the Padma awards. The slackening
standards in the choices for these awards, their
politicization and growing equation with power and
patronage have clearly contributed to the feeling
that the Bharat Ratna has been sullied and is best
done away with. There is no dignity, no honor left
in the Bharat Ratna; it should be abolished.
Besides, some are questioning the whole
concept of state awards.
"Awards are a
hangover of monarchy. Kings gave away titles to
various people as recognition of their loyalty to
the throne. But, should democracies continue with
this tradition that gives fancy titles to a few
privileged citizens?" asks the Times of India.
While arguing that "excellence in public life and
other areas of activity should be recognized", it
argues that "it's not the business of the
government to hand out awards and honors. Let the
private sector, especially peer groups, award
achievers. After all, what does the government
know of cinema to award film stars and directors?
Or, for that matter, does it have the credentials
to reward a writer or a musician?"
Given
the public mood of disgust with politicians in the
country, it is likely that the government will
award the Bharat Ratna to a non-politician.
Perhaps it will be Tendulkar or a social worker.
Or the government might prefer to play safe, dodge
the issue completely and not award the Bharat
Ratna this year.
It wont be the first time
that the Bharat Ratna is not being awarded. It was
suspended from 1977 to 1980. It was revived
thereafter, but has not been awarded since 2001.
In the seven years since, the government, it
seems, has not found a single person worthy of the
honor in a country of a billion-plus people.
India is a country in which its people
have achieved excellence in spite of the
government, where some of the finest leaders exist
not in the political class but in civil society,
where the most inspiring public service is being
done by those who battle against the state and its
policies.
If only the government would
look at civil society, it would find millions more
than worthy of the Bharat Ratna.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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