Mr. Prime Minister Modi, Award Bharat Ratna to Atal by A. Adityanjee

Independent India knows how to slight, insult and forget her historic icons! We did it with Netaji Subhash, Sardar Patel & Dr. BR. Ambedkar. We choose to call Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev as terrorists in government approved school textbooks while some of our emancipated former leaders have glorified terrorists with the use honorifics like “Osamaji”. For the first time, there is a golden opportunity to correct the former wrongs into rights. Better late than never!

India has the reputation of being a lamb state whom anyone could punch without any probability of retaliation. That changed with India’s bold nuclear posture in 1998. The person who took that bold initiative has not been honored by the nation. While two former Prime ministers vainly awarded themselves Bharat Ratna, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was too modest to follow in their foot-steps. The UPA government had 10 years’ time to honor this former PM but they chose not to out of pettiness and partisan politics.The insult was further compounded by awarding Bharat Ratna to a nobody like Sachin Tendulkar. Of course in India cricket has become the opium of the masses.

Mr. Prime Minister Modi, you have the golden chance to make history yet again by announcing Bharat Ratna for the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the man who transformed India from a fledgling lamb state to a confident nation on the road to superpower status.

This leader deserves to be awarded Bharat Ratna before he leaves all of us on this planet. Let us not wait more or wait for another day! Certainly let us not make it a posthumous award as was done for Sardar Patel, JP Narayan, Gopinath Bordoloi & Dr. BR Ambedkar.