Imagine waking up to this headline in the newspaper or with this trending on twitter!
Most people would be shocked while a small minority of usual suspects would find it a validation of their lifelong personal and unruly criticism of the man, which has become their full-time career.
Thousands of intellectuals would write an open letter dedicated to the Indian masses (Ironically, in English!) explaining how Modi is mocking institutions, destroying institutions built by Nehru and putting democracy in danger.
Well, in my opinion, it is a clear case of Modi propagating Rahul Gandhi’s politics of (self) love.
An Ode to Myself!
To be fair, it would be extremely narcissistic to do such a thing, especially if one knows how the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, is awarded.
The procedure of award the Bharat Ratna involves the PM of India or his cabinet nominating a maximum of 3 names to the President of India for his assent.
Would anybody buy it if we were told that his cabinet of ministers or the President had decided to confer this honour on him? Hell No!
Although, it won’t be the first time that has happened in Indian history.
Before I tell you why I am discussing a hypothetical situation. Let me give you a little bit of history.
Bharat Ratna (Jewel of India) began in 1954 to honour people for their exceptional service. The first recipients were politician C. Rajagopalachari, philosopher and 2nd President of India Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and Nobel Prize-winning physicist C. V. Raman.
That's an impressive list!
It’s given to people with great achievements across disciplines. Non-political recipients such as Satyajit Ray, JRD Tata, Nelson Mandela, Vinoba Bhave, Bismillah Khan, APJ Abdul Kalam and Bhupen Hazarika have kept the sanctity of the award alive otherwise it has been relegated to a tool to serve political interests.
However, almost 50% of the awards have been conferred on politicians – many of whom truly deserved the award – for example, Atal Bihar Vajpayee, who holds the distinction of being the first non-Congress PM to serve a full tenure along with historical giants such as Sardar Patel and BR Ambedkar.
Nothing wrong with serving political interests if the recipients are worthy of the honour.
BR Ambedkar got the award in 1990 – more than 40 years after his death – while Sardar Patel– who united India – got it along with Rajiv Gandhi, the father of India’s Clown Prince. Many people have been given the award posthumously but only Subhas Chandra Bose’s Bharat Ratna was cancelled in 1997 by the Supreme Court for being given posthumously in 1991.
Seems like cancelling Bharat Ratna is more urgent than solving the millions of pending cases.
There have been many controversies and some serious mishits as well.
Mother Teresa, Rajiv Gandhi, and Sachin Tendulkar
Let me list the ‘achievements of the people above – Rajiv Gandhi, a 4th generation dynast with Bofors scandal being his biggest contribution towards this nation, Mother Teresa who had a good PR team but at the end of the day was a Christian missionary and openly stated her primary aim to expand the number of Catholics in India, and Sachin Tendulkar, an outstanding cricketer who got it before many legends across different sports, especially hockey (read: Dhyan Chand).
NOW, TIME FOR THE BIG REVEAL.
Let me present to you 2 very unique cases of Bharat Ratna.
The self-proclaimed first family of British India – the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty – holds the world record for narcissism. Why? As both father and daughter gave the Bharat Ratna to themselves!
Jawaharlal Nehru awarded himself the Bharat Ratna in 1955 while Indira Gandhi awarded herself the Bharat Ratna in 1971.
I, JLN/IG, nominate JLN/IG to be the given the Bharat Ratna for their extraordinary narcissism.
Both these individuals were so narcissistic and self-obsessed that they crowned themselves as the Jewel of India. Before you share this with your friends, let me just warn you that both of them were not dumb enough to actually do this directly but smart enough to exploit a technicality.
Remember the rule which allows the cabinet or the President to award the Bharat Ratna WITH the PM’s permission? Only this time, the President, to use their own words, acted UNCONTITUTIONALLY to confer the honour on them.
Will, any educated person believe this? Of course Not! That is why we have some self-proclaimed flagbearers of facts in the 21st century to justify this magic trick.
If Bose’s Bharat Ratna award can be challenged then why not theirs? Why didn’t they simply return it? Where was the media headline criticising the move? Well, they were busy singing praises.
I’ll tell you why!
Both the individuals were undoubtedly self-obsessed narcissists but extremely smart and fully cognizant of how future generations will view them. They knew how to write history and had an entire army of people to jot down their thoughts as the history of our millennia-old civilisation.
An entire gallery of political giants was ignored to build up a particular family.
No wonder there is an entire movement, now coming to fore that is demanding the government to UPDATE our history books – make it more comprehensive and exhaustive with all great men and women getting their due.
In the meantime, I request the government to award my brother’s ex-girlfriend the RAJIV GANDHI KHEL RATNA, India’s highest honour for sportspersons, for her extraordinary achievements in playing with my brother’s feelings!
If anybody wants to see the magic of PR-agencies disguised as journalistic ventures, then here is the link for their ‘Fact-Check’. The lack of common sense is definitely worthy of another Bharat Ratna for the person who wrote these articles.
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