Samikhsya Bureau
In a first of its kind move, the initiative by the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna award on the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, must have raised eyebrows beyond the esteem of any count.
Reportedly, the Centre had filed a Public Interest Petition(PIL) in the Sureme Court seeking its nod on the conferring of the Bharat Ratna. And, rightly so, the apex court has indirectly hit back at the centre by saying that, to raise an issue like the award for a man of the Mahatma’s stature for such a recognition is not a matter that should be brought under the purview of choice.
The advice of the apex court must educate the people in politics that, everything is not politics and everybody cannot be seen through the prism of political preference to suit a particular agenda, may be.
The court’s observation is a lesson and the dispensation must learn a lesson not to keep the Mahatma bracketed with others in India.
It also raises questions at the sudden sense of the government at the centre to discover so much virtue in a few erstwhile personalities of the freedom struggle era, be it Sardar Patel or the Mahatma.
It may be recalled that, before the polls in Maharastra, a similar objective was purported by the BJP to confer Bharat Ratna to Veer Savarkar through its manifesto.
Bharat Ratna is obviously not a recognition that can be measured by political yardsticks but by the contributions of people which transcends any integral political calculus .
Such cries over the greatest recognition of the land, more muddied by clumsy debates in the media channels etc, we fail to give the man the reverence he or she deserves.
And why this sudden awakening of the Centre’s conscience to recognise the fathomless spirit and contribution of the Mahatma, is not known. It is the people from the same milieu, though not all, who even eulogise the killer of Mahatma as a ‘patriot’.
