Oct 19, 2024 08:59 PM IST
Ratan Tata was a great businessman, a visionary industrialist and a warm, compassionate, and good human being. But that could be true of many others. What marks him out is that he was venerated
Ratan Tata deserved the Bharat Ratna. It should have been given to him in his lifetime. Now that he is dead will it be conferred posthumously?
There are many sound reasons why that should happen but, perhaps, one stands out. He was a great businessman, a visionary industrialist and a warm, compassionate, and good human being. But that could be true of many others. What marks him out is that he was venerated. More than admired he was a hero on a pedestal. That can only be said of very few people. Perhaps a handful. Ratan Tata was one of them.
Second, those that we look up to — indeed, crane our necks to see — deserve the highest recognition. They’re not just high achievers. They’re very special people. This is why he deserves the highest award in the land.
Now, if you look at the list of 53 people who have been given the Bharat Ratna, Ratan Tata might outshine most of them. Would that not be the case with politicians like BC Roy, PD Tandon, K Kamaraj, VV Giri, MG Ramachandran, Rajiv Gandhi, Aruna Asaf Ali, Gulzarilal Nanda, Gopinath Bordoloi, Karpoori Thakur, and Chaudhary Charan Singh?
Let me put it differently. If Mother Teresa, MS Subbulakshmi, Amartya Sen, Ravi Shankar, Lata Mangeshkar, Bismillah Khan, Bhimsen Joshi, and Sachin Tendulkar deserved the award — and most certainly they did — how can that not be the case with Ratan Tata?
The truth is the award is given by politicians and it goes mainly to politicians. Of the 53 recipients of the Bharat Ratna, only 18, as far as I can tell, have come from fields of endeavour other than and outside of politics. Since 1954, when the Bharat Ratna was first conferred, only one industrialist has been thought worthy of it — JRD Tata. That’s it.
No doubt there are many other people, from multiple and varied disciplines, who should have got it but did not. I can think of Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, Salman Rushdie, and Zubin Mehta. Each of them is an outstanding Indian who soared to the peak of his career. The world has recognised and applauded their achievement. Alas, their country failed to do so.
It’s not too late to rectify matters. Giving the Bharat Ratna to Ratan Tata would be a significant first step. If it can be given to BR Ambedkar, Vallabhbhai Patel, Abul Kalam Azad and Madan Mohan Malviya decades after their death, it can still be conferred on Field Marshal Manekshaw, who died in 2008, and Dilip Kumar, who died in 2021. Thankfully, Rushdie, Bachchan and Mehta are still with us.
However, there’s another depressing truth we need to acknowledge. Many times the Bharat Ratna is awarded not because it’s deserved but because it’s politically convenient to do so. I won’t name names, because I don’t want to hurt egos, but almost every person that falls into this category is or was a politician. And it’s been done by every government we’ve had, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi.
The sad fact we can’t escape from is that often the Bharat Ratna has been given to people who did not really deserve it or it’s been denied to others who did. Either way, it diminished the award.
So, isn’t it time that we stop lamenting the fact that truly deserving Indians have been wilfully ignored or the undeserving honoured and attempt to atone for that lapse? Of course, the real jewels of India will always be recognised by their countrymen. In Ratan Tata’s case, the thousands that turned up for his funeral, as well as the pages of newsprint and hours of broadcast time devoted to him, are a testament to that fact. No one can deny that. But that doesn’t mean the State doesn’t owe them their due. I would say it would be unforgivable if that doesn’t happen.
Karan Thapar is the author of Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story.The views expressed are personal
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