Bharat Ratna......India's Highest Civilian Award... Politics or Awareness...

Bharat Ratna...... The Republic of India's Highest Civilian Award, awarded for the highest degrees of National Service.

Service includes  Literary, Artistic, Economics and Scientific Achievements.

Strong education system of India, always mentioned (in curriculum text books)  the dignity of this award. Every citizen and student aware of  what this award means.

It's always been a most important General Knowledge question in all level of educational and competitive examinations.

I remember, we used to mug about it with very high respect as a part of our General Knowledge (GK) high school curriculum . The things to remember about, the Recipient Name, Year and the Field to achieve this award.

Time Changes, Things changes,  Generation Changes and within all these natural process of change, India as a Nation changed as well.

Just crossing the puberty age India as a nation gradually kept it's feet in prime age. Yes, India enters into its youth. Every thing drastically changed. India become much more glamorized, wealthier, globalized, going to be mighty global economy.

Among all these add on drastic changing process. It's not important how much Indian foreign policy\politics changed or India's global politics changed but the inter-national politics definitely not changed, little bit.

Political leaders still follow the same old conventional and orthodox way of  politics. Yes, in a name of change in politics we can see some new and highly educated young blood entered. But , that too not by choice but that is just by chance or their luck or their legacy.

Anyways, we're here to discuss the BHARAT RATNA.

The award was established by the first President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, on 2 January 1954.

Till date,  41 awards has been awarded. Out of 41 awards, one is awarded to a naturalised Indian citizen, Mother Teresa (1980), and two Non-Indians, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987) and Nelson Mandela (1990).

Here's the list of Bharat Ratna Recipients (in reverse chronical order).

41. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi (2008)

40. Kumari Lata Dinanath Mangeshkar (2001)

39. Ustad Bismillah Khan (2001)

38. Prof. Amartya Sen (1999)

37. Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi (1999)

36. Loknayak Jayprakash Narayan (1999)

35. Pandit Ravi Shankar (1999)

34. Shri Chidambaram Subramaniam (1998)

33. Smt. Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi (1998)

32. Shri (Dr.) Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (1997)

31. Smt. Aruna Asaf Ali (1997)

30. Shri Gulzari Lal Nanda (1997)

29. Shri Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata (1992)

28. Shri Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1992)

27. Shri Satyajit Ray (1992)

26. Shri Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (1991)

25. Shri Rajiv Gandhi (1991)

24. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1991)

23. Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedakr (1990)

22. Dr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1990)

21. Shri Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran (1988)

20. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987)

19. Shri Acharya Vinoba Bhave (1983)

18. Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) (1980)

17. Shri Kumaraswamy Kamraj (1976)

16. Shri Varahagiri Venkata Giri (1975)

15. Smt. Indira Gandhi (1971)

14. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri (1966)

13. Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kane (1963)

12. Dr. Zakir Hussain (1963)

11. Dr. Rajendra Prasad (1962)

10. Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy (1961)

09. Shri Purushottam Das Tandon (1961)

08. Dr. Dhonde Keshav Karve (1958)

07. Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant (1957)

06. Dr. Bhagwan Das (1955)

05. Shri Jawaharlal Nehru (1955)

04. Dr. Mokshagundam Vivesvaraya (1955)

03. Shri Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1954)

02. Dr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1954)

01. Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (1954)

 The award was briefly suspended from 13 July 1977 to 26 January 1980.

 

So wondering, why did I briefly discuss about politics in between . This highly dignitary award has off and on being political object and being discussed as controversial way.  Like, every highly respected awards (eg, Nobel Prize) , BHARAT RATNA too have some protocols. The Bharat Ratna too is having some guidelines and qualifications.

 

(Apologies,  if any one have the objection)  Most interesting thing about this great award is, some times it discussed and molded as a political object.

 

One of the incident , it was when it's declared for Subhash Chandra Bose in 1992, which was later withdrawn due to a some reasons.  ( read in wiki)

 

Now,  the fun started in April 2011. Occasion was India won the Cricket world Cup.

(I too am,  a great fan of cricket. When one talk about mordern cricket , one cannot disintegrate Sachin Tendulkar from the game. Any person who love the game cricket can't ignore Sachin, the legend. _

 

(The below paragraph is quite hypothetical guys.. just imagining ...) As we know fans are always crazy , some how someone might made some remark about Legendary Sachin that SACHIN is a BHARAT RATNA.....

.......Fine........... Well......Agreed....

Sachin is Bharat Ratna. Not only the whole India but the whole world Love him.

 

 

But indeed,  did anyone try to understand the fact that how intricate would it be to declare Sachin, the  Bharat Ratna?.

Does anyone,  evaluate the technical limitations to declare the award to him.?

I guess, no.. nobody.

The prime technical difficulty is the award is only given in the field of services  Literary, Artistic and Scientific Achievements.

 

Now the politics and poor politicians came into picture, talks started about to amend the guidelines and qualifications of the award.

Can easily  comprehend, Sachin is a big name and utmost popular among nation, entire nation love him. Seeking his popularity and Just to please cricket lovers, Sachin lovers and take the credit that we change and include the sports in the service list of the award, government started the thread.

No political party opposes as after all they need votes, from public.

Astonishingly, they approch towards to change the guidelines and qualification of the Highest Civilian Award.

 

Grow up Govenment....

The True Heros like Sachin does not require any honor like this. Hero like him lives in the heart of billions.

Continuing with the sad political story, Now this hurdle is also seems to be in resolving stage and most of  the political leaders, agreed to include sport on the list. Atleast government proposed BHARAT RATNA for Sachin.

(Reason is obvious, noone want to hurt the emotions of others, some of us realise but hestiate to speak against .)

 

HOLD ON, What's going on ...

Is it fun ... Is politics a power game ....

Can you answer these questions of normal intellectual and educated person of the Nation.

Did you guys change the guidelines when the award  declared to Mr. Bose was withdrawn ?

Is any global Highest Civilian Award included sports?

 

Being commercially successful in any field does make you eligible to deserve the Highest Civilian Award?

What ever rules, guidelines or prototypes had been made for any foundations (either award like this or our constitution) in past, has it's meaning and vision.

It's not like during the initial proposal or establishment of the award, the sport was not there as a part of  society.

Hockey was the most popular sport of that era.

Now some people (hockey lovers) realize, that government already reached  too far to manipulate the service list of BHARAT RATNA. So, they proposed DyanChand, as a sound contester to get BHARAT RATNA. And they are true,  in actual.

No doubt, Sachin is legend of modern cricket , no reasons why shouldn't we praise him with high dignity.

No doubt, he had attended,  all possible heights of success and records. His commitment to nation is superb and appreciable . He has been serving the nation for last 2 decades. His achivements are remarkable and unachieveable. He set up untouchable landmark in the game of cricket.He is most successful persona in all format of game.  He can be addressed as God of cricket, in every way of cricket.

 

Still, I do have couple of questions in my mind.

1. Isn't Sachin too young, to get the honor known as BHARAT RATNA.

2. After so many achivements, does he still comparable with the personalities listed in list of 41 noble personalities, who got the honor.

3. His commitment and dedication is always unquestioned. Can he be rated above Dhyan Chand (hockey player)?

4. If we want to consider Sachin. Can't we put PT Usha and Vishwanathan Anand in the same list?

5. Dont we already have separate award format for sports?

Dont make mockery of the things ...

.Time to think now....

Think before you act ....

Without being political and emotional over the matter, I propose one solution isn't it possible to introduce another award stating equivalent to BHARAT RATNA, in the field of commerical activities (including sports and entertainment industry( or any commerical activities)).
Without touching the existing format of great BHARAT RATNA.

 

 Any suggestions appreciated..............

Date::  11/12/2011.
I wrote this article on July 27 2011. Today I came to know Justice Katju share the same views as I was\am.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bharat-Ratna-to-cricketers-filmstars-a-mockery-of-award-Justice-Katju/articleshow/11182465.cms

Justice is quite correct , courageous and sane person. May be , thousands of us might be thinking like him or me . But not able to express the views in public.
As Justice is,  in good position to put his thoughts across media so he can express it in public.
Kudos for you Justice Katju.
I'm no-body so I'm writing my views as very common man. I'm sure not body is even going to read it. (:(( ).

Back to topic.  Sure,  mastering in game or cinema is a commitment,  dedication and hardwork . But it;s a God gift too. And surely we should not forget in return of hardwork and dedication, players and movie stars earning a lot of money and their earnings are coming very little or nothing back to society.

Please dont play with the criteria of this highest honaray award; it's very special;  it was especially and intentionally formatted & decidated to highly intellectual individuals. Not like any body.

No offend to anyone. It's just my thoughts which now Justice Katju approved.