Bharat Ratna to LK Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and also to Karpoori Thakur and Pranab Mukherjee; Padma Vibhushan to Mulayam Singh and Sharad Pawar, and also to Kalyan Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and Tarun Gogoi; and Padma Bhushan to Left’s Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, which he politely refused to accept.
This has been one hallmark of the Narendra Modi government, which, since 2015, has blurred the political lines when it comes to conferring the country’s top civilian honours to those who excelled in the category of ‘public service’. Merit has overtaken petty politics, with the Modi government not shy to acknowledge its adversaries and going into areas where the Congress chose not to dread.
This reflects in the choices of politicians, including those opposed to the BJP and specifically the Narendra Modi government — from the Congress, the regional parties like the Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), socialists and even the Left were picked for these awards in the last nine years.
In the last fortnight, the government has announced Bharat Ratna for Karpoori Thakur, the torch-bearer of socialism, and LK Advani, the proponent of Hindutva politics in the 1990s, hence, reaching out to both the Mandal and Kamandal political schools of thought. The demand for Bharat Ratna for Thakur existed since 2007 from Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad but the Congress did not choose to acknowledge him.
In 2023, the government announced a Padma Vibhushan posthumously for Mulayam Singh, a year after it gave the same award to Kalyan Singh after his death. Yadav and Singh were at the opposite sides of the political spectrum of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, with Yadav as CM ordering firing on Kar Sevaks in Ayodhya in 1990 while the Babri Masjid was demolished under Kalyan Singh’s reign as CM in 1992.
Both Yadav and Singh were never awarded any Padma award in their lifetime by earlier governments.
A big surprise was the announcement of a Padma Vibhushan for Sharad Pawar in 2017 and a Padma Bhushan posthumously for Congress leader Tarun Gogoi in 2021. These were leaders firmly opposed to the BJP. Pawar was never given any Padma award by the Congress.
A Padma Bhushan for senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in 2022 also surprised the Congress, along with a Bharat Ratna for Pranab Mukherjee in 2019. These were top Congress leaders — and the contrast to Modi government’s approach was apparent as the Gandhis skipped the Award ceremony on both these occasions.
Tall regional leaders like Prakash Singh Badal, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Ram Vilas Paswan have also been given top Padma awards by this government. Muzaffar Hussain Baig of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was awarded a Padma Bhushan in 2020, even after the BJP and PDP had earlier a bitter parting away of an alliance in J&K.
In doing so, the Modi government has not forgotten to bestow the honour upon its shining stars as well — like a Padma Vibhushan to George Fernandes, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and M Venkaiah Naidu.
From Mandal to Kamandal, the Congress and even the Left, the Modi government has truly risen the Bharat Ratna and Padma Awards above politics.
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