Bharat Ratna!

I could see from the corner of my left eye that my wife, scurrying past, head bent and pretending (detecting this comes from cumulative experience, there is no substitute!) to be searching the floor for some long-lost bling.  She was actually trying to deftly slink from the spot in which I was in an intense argument with a couple of friends about Tendulkar's Bharat Ratna (BR).  She had her reasons; she had heard my impassioned (read `blathering') point of view in this matter before and had no doubt it was just a matter of time before I embarrassed her and my unknown and unnamed ancestors, our progeny and their own unborn broods and herself by propagating what she thought was a mulish muddle.  No, she never bothers about me embarrassing myself because she thinks I am suicidally adept at such self-flagellating initiatives and richly deserve all the resulting awkwardness and more.  She prefers to be miles away from the scenes of such harakiri. When a friend called out to her `You must listen to what your dear husband is saying',  she nonchalantly continued her effort at extrication from the scene with a vaguely mumbled response nobody comprehended.  You see, I was absolutely convinced that Tendulkar got his BR not for a century of centuries and other related achievements but for ultimately deciding to call it quits, definitely a couple of years unpardonably late.  It was conferred on him by the powers that be, more in immense relief than in appreciation, was my brief.  Tendulkar, the individual turned out to be an awfully poorer judge of the situation and worse timer of decisions compared to Tendulkar, the player!

But this piece is not about Tendulkar.  There is not even an iota of doubt that he deserves all the accolades that come his way.  So, let us get that out of the way.  This is about the process, or the dismal lack of it, in deciding the BR recipients.  There is no clarity, none at all, about how and why the recommendation of a name is made to the President, ignoring some other qualifying names.  So, there is no wonder there are huge controversies periodically and even litigation attempts when this award is announced.  Ours is a country which willfully and unabashedly infuses generous dollops of politics into every sphere - whether it be religion or motherhood or rocketry, thereby seeding every governmental action with plenty of scope for controversy.  So, when the political establishment is the penultimate arbiter for such awards (the Prime Minister makes the recommendations apparently on the basis of a governmental committee's selection inputs) and the final goal-keeper is the President,  one can imagine how apolitical the entire process will be.  In a nutshell, it is probably futile to try rationalizing the BR calls, especially against this background and we better let things be.  But then, nothing is more fun than in indulging in a task without any expectation of an outcome - just for the sake of it.  So, here we go.

If you look at the list, it is clear that one does not have to lay claim to the award from inside a tomb or an urn.  Being dead is not a necessary qualification and being alive will not be held against you for this purpose.  Lata Mangeshkar, Tendulkar, Amartya Sen and Abdul Kalam testify to that.  May be, I should not, therefore, say there is no clarity at all about the rules of the game.  Till Tendulkar's award came, no sportsperson was ever considered for BR and that was the reason for all the commotion witnessed when his award was announced.  Only achievements in art/literature, science, public service were recognized for over 60 years.  It is indeed a depressing fact that not a single writer has been conferred with BR till now (assuming Amartya Sen's Economics rather than literary skills got him the award), which have seen politicians of all shades being honoured in the name of public service.  One has to conclude that no Indian literary writer has so far merited the award - how convincing does that sound? 

Was a sportsperson ignored earlier because achievements in this area are primarily through physical exertion?  Could be, going by the strong national disinclination historically to unduly exert ourselves except when chased by a mad dog or pulling, shoving in queues to watch a movie or cricket match or gyrating to variants of `lungi dance'!  That was why Dhyan Chand was denied the award all this time, because all he did was physical?  Or was it something like only extraordinary individual achievements in team sports would be recognized (that makes immense good sense, right?) but crown jewels like Prakash Padukone would be rejected because his was an intensely personal accomplishment in an individual sport - very logical, don't you think?  But, Chess can qualify probably because it is not just about physical prowess but requires significant cerebral matter?  Vish Anand could have been an awardee as soon as he won the World title?  May be not - because Chess is not a widely popular sport/game?  But then how was Satyajit Ray given BR, when more popular mainstream Hindi film personalities like Raj Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan have languished?  Somebody in the selection committee got bitten by the `art cinema' bug?  It is indeed an irrefutable fact that one Raj Kapoor or Amitabh movie drew in an audience far bigger than all of Ray's movies put together.  So `being popular' is obviously not enough?  That would seem so because Lata Mangeshkar has got it, but not the equally popular Mohammed Rafi or Kishore Kumar, even though they all equally excelled at the same thing.  May be the number of songs they have rendered was the deciding criterion? Of course, a P.Susheela, who sang prolifically and mellifluously in all the southern regional languages and who many consider even better than Lata (put it down to flagrant parochialism!) could have been denied only on the basis of lack of popularity in non-southern states.

So, the absolutely unbiased amongst the readers can scream out now, if a discernible pattern in the decision making process has been identified.  No?  None?  I thought my predisposition is blinding me to the merits of the process.  But one thing is clear from the bulk of BRs which have been awarded to politicians and those who are associated with politics - almost 54% of the total.  That is one bright and clear beacon shining through - if you are a politician you stand a better chance of getting BR, more so if you have the strong support of the party in power.  But even here, the consistency is not all that good.  While many previous Prime Ministers of the country, including an interim one, have got BR - unsurprisingly all of them belonged to Congress - even a deserving candidate like Vajpayee has not got over the hurdle because BJP lost power at the end of Vajpayee's term.  Gujral and Deve Gowda would not pass muster anyway while Narasimha Rao queered his party's pitch in some ways to lose favour.  Interestingly many of our Presidents have got the nod, but those like Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, Zail Singh, Venkataraman and Sanjeeva Reddy have not - am sure because successive governments have concluded that their 'public service' was clearly inferior to that of V.V.Giri.

Unless something changes drastically, by extrapolation it is easy to visualise some potential BR recipients in the next one or two decades - Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Shard Pawar, Vajpayee, Advani.  Unless, of course, Aam Aadmi Party and the like seize power at the centre with the primary objective of setting right the BR process!   Karunanidhi would have made the list if he had not rocked the alliance boat at a critical juncture!!

The only outcome of a very shallow analysis is that political agenda probably drives the decisions more than anything else, when it comes to BR and all other civilian awards.  Exceptions could be there, but they are just that.  If you are in the good books of the ruling party, you have a chance, otherwise you don't.  Simple.  Should the recipients of the country's highest civilian award be determined unilaterally by a government playing favourites or by an independent panel of eminent, well-read and impartial people, which would make the choices without fear or favour - it is easy to see.  But who is going to implement what is right, with courage and vision?  That person would deserve the BR without doubt.