|
|
Analysis
National Awards:
The �Secular� Connection
by
Saurav Basu
Bharat Ratna is the
highest civilian award for national service. The order was established
by Dr Rajendra Prasad, President of India, on January 2, 1954. Today,
there are 41 Bharat Ratna winners in India, the last being Bhimsen
Joshi. And yet, there are noticeable absentees. Mahatma Gandhi, the most
conspicuous but since he was already elevated to the �father of the
nation�, his posthumous soul automatically opted out of the race.
But there was no Sardar
Patel either, the iron man of India until 1991, despite the fact that
the provision to award the Bharat Ratna posthumously was enacted way
back in 1955. This provision was probably made to confer the award on
Sardar Patel. But Nehru�s profound ideological and personal differences
with Patel came in the way.
Patel was intrinsically a
man who connected to the masses unlike Nehru�s Anglicized condescending
approach. Patel was an uncompromising nationalist with an �India first�
approach without any pretensions to internationalism, soviet mania and
�Hindi-China bhai bha at the expense of the right to self determination
of the Tibetan people�. Patel sternly objected to minority appeasement
in a divided India, Nehru started the farce of �Haj subsidy� but did not
contribute a single paisa towards restoration of the Somnatha temple.
Patel defended the �right to property� as an inviolable fundamental
right and found intolerable the partially communist ethos of Nehru.
Patel gave a clean chit to
RSS in the Gandhi murder case, while Nehru in true totalitarian fashion
incarcerated thousands of RSS workers in jail on the basis of guilt by
association (Nathuram was an RSS member more than 10 years before he
killed Gandhi. He left the organization because he did not find it
militant enough). Indeed, what prevented an open rupture between both
these men, in the admission of a left leaning historian Ramachandra
Guha�s words �was mutual regard and Patel�s stoic decency�
Yet, Nehru gleefully conferred the Bharat Ratna on himself in 1955 with
the full blessings of Rajendra Prasad and other obsequious Congressmen.
This paved the path for sequential undermining of the credibility of the
state awards. Nehru had little to show as positive achievements when the
entire country mass was mired in poverty, illiteracy and backwardness, a
situation which consistently worsened until death forced Nehru to
abdicate his throne in 1963. He left India more poor and more backward,
confesses Walter Crocker in his �Nehru: a contemporary estimate�.
L K Advani in his memoirs perceptively notes that �The process of
undermining democratic consultation and decision making within the
Congress had begun with Nehru himself. He often defied the party�s
decisions, it was also Nehru who had planted the seeds of dynasticism in
the party by consciously grooming his daughter as his successor. She
triumphed in her battle against her adversaries, but, in the process,
she wrote the epitaph of democracy inside the Congress Party� Indeed,
the most enduring legacy that Nehru left behind is the Gandhi family.
C Rajagopalachari another scion of the Congress family and India�s last
governor general, who incidentally was one of the first Congress leaders
to find merit in the two nation theory (see Dhananjay Keer, 1966) was
also conferred the Bharat Ratna. But of course, Shyama Prasad Mukherji,
the man who single handedly through his supreme self sacrifice forced
the communal administration of Sheikh Abdullah to abolish the provision
of two heads of state and replacement of the sadar-e-riyasat (head of
state) system with the usual governorship in vogue elsewhere was denied
the same. In fact, Nehru far from taking moral responsibility for
Mukherji�s demise in the prison of his childhood friend Sheikh Abdullah,
refused to even order an inquiry into the death of the martyr when
everyone suspected skeletons in the latter�s cupboard.
Indira Gandhi continued the grand family tradition by emulating her
father self conferment of the Bharat Ratna in 1971. Until the 1980s,
almost 85% of the Bharat Ratna awardees were either full time Congresmen
or their foot soldiers. The others included Nobel Prize laureates, two
non Indians and few apolitical scholars. No man critical of the Congress
in his lifetime could ever hope to win the prize in life or death. B R
Ambedkar in 1991, is a notable exception because of the beginnings of
dalit mobilization. Interesting, Rajiv Gandhi won the award more on
sympathetic grounds than any positive contribution. In fact, his
irresponsible statements after his mother�s assassination by her Sikh
bodyguards had tragic consequences. His flip flop in the Shah Bano case
proved the paramountcy of votebank politics in his political career.
Similarly, the deployment of the IPKF in Sri Lanka which cost the lives
of thousands of distinguished Indian soldiers is unpardonable.
Other awards have fared hardly any better. Their rampant political abuse
has continued unabated as exemplified by the case of Pranab Mukherjee,
the 2nd in command being conferred the Padma Vibhusan in 2008 for
displaying his incessant and unwavering loyalty to Sonia Gandhi.
The political abuse of the national awards is also reflected in the fact
that several scholars and academicians who push an academic line
favorable to the �secular� politics of the Congress have been
consistently rewarded for their services. For instance, Ramachandra
Guha�s BJP Bash has made him the apple of the eye for the Congress party
and he was compensated with a Padma Bhushan in exchange of his services.
Mediamen like Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt have won the Padma Sri
because of their undying commitment to the �secular� cause! Sister
Nirmala�s missionaries are found suitable while selfless Hindu
organizations like the Ramakrishna Mission who serve the nation in a
spirit reflecting the Hindu way of life are excluded. All in all, the
absence of a �secular� connection makes you a persona non grata in the
eyes of the Indian state irrespective of your actual service to the
nation.
The record of Atal Behari Vajpayee in this regard stands out in stark
contrast. In his tenure not a single Bharat Ratna was awarded
posthumously to any Hindu activist, not even stalwarts like Shyama
Prasad Mukherje, V.D.Savarkar or Deendayal Upadhyay. Showing exemplary
maturity, Vajpayee understood that the national awards would be
trivialized and devalued if they became instruments of politics. After
all, the awards carry any meaning only when even your bitterest
opposition despite mutual differences voluntarily recognizes your
services to the nation. Reason says that any party line relationship,
common ideological dogmas or bias for an individual or organization in
the race for the award should instantly render one a non adjudicator in
the selection process. But the quid pro quo political obligations being
gratified through state awards is a manifestation of the perversion of
India�s political parlance.
Advani had recently requested the Congress party for conferring the
Bharat Ratna to Vajpayee for his lifetime contribution to Indian
politics and successfully leading the first non Congress government but
his dignified proposal was met with a barrage of asinine objections from
the �secularists�. Today, Atal Behari Vajpayee is in a critical
condition and it is doubtful if he would ever receive the Bharat Ratna
in his lifetime. But the irony is that there is no other Indian still
alive who is more eligible and yet more justifiably deserves the same.
February 8, 2009
Top
|
Analysis
|
|
