TALES OF TRAVESTY
DR. JITENDRA SINGH
If a foreign researcher, keen to educate himself about the “greatest of the great” Indians since independence was to seek the help of official accredition of greatness, he would be amused to learn that in a span of mere 66 years since 1947, the country of 125 crore has produced as many as three “greatest greats” from a single family. The highest State acknowledgement of greatness in the form of “Bharat Ratna” zeroed on not once or twice but thrice at the same doorstep to confer the nation’s highest honour on Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi successively.
The rest of the story of the much hyped State awards is easy to tell. Barring exceptions like Lata Mangeshkar, Sachin Tendulkar and Sardar Patel albeit posthumously, the Bharat Ratna recipients have always subscribed to a particular genre of high and mighty, either amicable to ruling polity or sought to be placated by ruling polity for expedient gains. The most striking example of the second consideration mentioned above is that of Tamil actor turned politician M.G Ramachandran, popularly known as MGR, whom Indira Gandhi had hastily awarded a Bharat Ratna in order to win him over to her side in the Dravidian electoral battle against Karunanidhi’s DMK. Now, even a die-hard Tamilian would be embarrassed to rate MGR’s Bharat Ratna credential higher than that of fellow Tamilian M. Karunanidhi who was, along with C. Annaduria, founding father of Dravidian movement in South India, an accomplished writer and longest lasting regional satrap in Indian politics.
Incidentally, many of the notable persons denied Bharat Ratna have made more indelible mark in the history of independent India compared to most of those who got reduced to the foot-notes of history despite being Bharat Ratna holders. For example, compare some of the non-recipients of Bharat Ratna like Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, Jyoti Basu, Ram Manohar Lohia and Atal Behari Vajpayee with some of the forgotten recipients of Bharat Ratna like V.V. Giri, C. Subramanium and K. Kamaraj.
The same is the case with the State Padam awards…….. Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan. With the Republic Day approaching, the kind of behind-the-scene lobbying that goes for these awards would be visible once again in the weeks to come. And, close to 26 January, when the list of awardees is out, one would realize that very much like in the preceding years, the Padmashris have gone mostly to those who compromised their dignity to cultivate proximity with the powers-that-be. No wonder, therefore, some of the leading figures in respective fields command a higher public reverence compared to their peers who happen to be Padmashris.
The question, thus, is whether at all to continue with such defaulted State awards or do away with them once and for all as short-lived Janata Party Government headed by Morarji Desai had sought to do? Just as omission is better than commission, is it not better not to confer an award than to confer it on an ill-deserving one? It is not without reason that common man is turning increasingly indifferent to such subjective honours even as Umapathy laments the unawarded talent of more deserving ones, “Dard Hi Sahi, Mere Ishq Ka “Inaam” To Aaya….”
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