Omkar Dattatray
The decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi government to confer the country’s highest civilian award to former Deputy Prime Minister, Home and Information Broadcasting Minister Lal Krishan Advani is praiseworthy and is very deserving. The NDA government of Modi has conferred Bharat Ratna to two leaders of the BJP that is to Nanaji Deshmukh, L.K. Advani and also to Karpouri Thakur though posthumously. By awarding Bharat Ratan to Advani, Modi has repaid his Guru Dashna to his mentor, Guru path bearer Advani as he stood with Modi through thick and thin and defended Modi in 2000 when he stood alone and when Modi was asked by the then prime minister Vajapyee to follow Raj Dhrama when Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Modi government has decided to confer the Bharat Ratna to 96 year old Advani in recognition of his outstanding services to the nation. On hearing the news of conferring the Bharat Ratna to the senior leader of the BJP, Advani, the old leader L.K Advani got emotional and complimented the prime minister and president for deciding to confer the highest civilian award to him .Advani is the 50th person to have been given this highest honor. BJP leaders Amit Shah and JP Nadda congratulated Advani for this honor .The senior leader of BJP, M.M Joshi also went to the residence of Advani and congratulated him for the award and presented a bookie to him. Advani rightly deserved the Bharat Ratna as it was he who changed the political landscape of the country by conducting the Rath Yatra and the Ramjanaboomi movement which was the brain child of Advani and it changed the politics of the country and catapulted NDA/BJP to power at the centre and ended the six decade rule of congress. The decision to confer the Bharat Ratna to Advani proved that the nation does not forget the service and role of the leaders /personalities to the country .Both Advani and Modi were emotional over the award as the student/shasha was paying his debt to his guru .As the news of conferring Bharat Ratna to Advani spread ,many leaders of the opposition like congress .Samajwadi party and AIMIM opposed the decision to confer the Bharat Ratna to Advani. Veteran leader, Shri Lal Krishan Advani will be conferred with Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of the nation. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has announced about this development through his X post. PM posted on X this.
”I am very happy to share that L.K Advani Ji will be conferred the Bharat Ratna. I also spoke to him and congratulated him on being conferred this honor .One of the most respected statesmen of our times ,his contribution to the development of India is monumental. His is a life that started from working at the grassroots to serving the nation as our Deputy Prime Minister. He distinguished himself as our home minister and I&B minister as well. His parliamentary interventions have always been exemplary ,full of rich insights ”Advani Ji’s decades -long service in public life has been marked by an unwavering commitment to transparency and integrity ,setting an exemplary standard in political ethics .He has made unparalleled efforts towards furthering national unity and cultural resurgence .The conferring of the Bharat Ratna is testimony to the fact that that Advani connected Indian democracy with national ideologies and again it was Advani who changed the political landscape of India .It is Advani who challenged the dynastic politics of congress and made the BJP led NDA rule possible in India .The multifaceted contributions of Advani to the nation cannot be exaggerated .It was Advani who made it possible that the nationalistic card was made possible as he gave a nationalistic tinge to the politics of the country .He in fact did a great service to the Indian nation by relating and combining democracy with national ideology .Besides this it was Advani who made national integration and national unity possible as he strengthened national integration by his conduct and envious role in the country .But there are many political leaders especially of the opposition front who questioned and criticized the Modi government for its decision of conferring Bharat Ratna to Advani .Some politicians are politicizing the conferring of Bharat Ratna on Advani .Others said that Advani communalized the politics by holding Rath Yatra and Ramjanamboomi movement which according to them divided the society .But others said that it was Advani who gave a new tinge to communal amity and true secularism as he was the strong advocate of secularism as it was he who coined the name of pseudo-secularism and criticized the minority appeasement of congress and other so called secularists. .But then why a Bharat Ratna can’t help the 96 -years old Advani from becoming a mere pawn on Modi’s political chessboard .Having buried him in the shadows of the party’s retirement bench ,redundantly named as the ”margdarshak mandal” , PM Narendra Modi has now decided to resurrect the senior BJP leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani by conferring him with the country’s highest honor ,the Bharat Ratna .Advani ,the man who as party president in 1989 first incorporated the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya as one of the party’s agenda in its Palampur National Executive resolution .was recently both ”invited and disinvited” at the temple’s grand consecration ceremony on January 22,2024.There could not have been a more suitable time for the Hindutva ideologue to receive the Bharat Ratna in a new India that embodies widespread feelings of uncertainty ,fear and insecurity ,the foundation of which was laid by none other than Advani .Fated to watch the fulfillment of his single-most significant political goal ,the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya ,on television screens ,Advani at 96 can now recall his unparalleled role in driving the country towards sharp religious polarization as his contributions have finally been acknowledged by his greatest mentee and successor ,Narendra Modi .Over the last few decades ,the country’s highest honor has been reduced to an instrument for political messaging .While scientists ,musicians ,sportspersons ,and social reformers have received the honor from time to time ,political dispensations at the centre have mostly chosen to confer the award to ideologues of their parties .He is among those founders of the BJP who gave a clear and sharp ideological line to the saffron party from his days in the Jana Sangh ,even when his party had most depended on stitching up anti-congress alliances .He perhaps played the biggest organizational role in transforming the saffron party into a mass organization .He is still the BJP’s longest -serving party president ,having been at the helm of the party machinery between 1986-91for the first time then between 1993-98 and finally a yearlong stinct in 2004-05 .But despite all this Advani deserved most the honor of Bharat Ratna and Modi deserved to be complimented for conferring the highest civilian award to Advani .The playing of dirty politics over the decision of conferring Bharat Ratna on Advani is untenable and unacceptable as Advani was a multifaceted politician who deserved the Bharat Ratna in recognition of his service to the nation and parliamentary democracy as he was the tall parliamentarian which India has seen and Advani’s role in strengthening parliamentary democracy and nationalism and national integration cannot be undermined.
(The author is a columnist,
social and KP activist.)
