Julio Ribeiro column: Why I will not return my Padma Bhushan award

Numerous writers and creative personalities across India are busy returning their achievement awards to the Sahitya Akademi. A Padma Shri Awardee from Punjab has also done so. This has rattled the government, though the Sahitya Akademi is not the government and the revolt was against the Akademi Council not protesting the murders of their tribe, purportedly by right wing fanatics.

However, I have decided not to return the Padma Bhushan awarded to me in 1987 for my Punjab sojourn. I have no intention of rocking the boat of the BJP government any more than what is already being done by its own hot heads within the party and the Sangh Parivar. I understand that Narendra Modi is confronted by a Hobson’s choice. He cannot discipline BJP party extremists who have been spouting rubbish because they belong to the RSS stable, since these stables assure him of 20 of the 21% national votes that the BJP polled in the last Lok Sabha general elections. He must be worried about the 11% additional votes that helped him attain power - these votes came mainly from the youth whose aspirations for a better life propelled them into his camp. He realises that mere rhetoric will not suffice with these new converts. However, Modi requires time. He cannot produce miracles. He cannot change the economy overnight. A lot is being done in the infrastructure segments by good people in his cabinet like Piyush Goyal, Suresh Prabhu and Nitin Gadkari. They are doing it very quietly, but very effectively. If the amendments to the Land Acquisition and labour laws go through, they will be enabled to do it much faster.

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India deserves a chance. Modi deserves a chance. Let us not make it more difficult for him to deal with the intransigent elements in his own party. He managed it in Gujarat, but now the stakes are much higher and the obstacles much greater. I want him to succeed for the sake of the country and hence I will hold back on making known my own displeasure about the intolerance levels that have risen abnormally since the extremist elements have been feeling emboldened. We did not harbour any type of fear about these elements in the time of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. On the contrary, we were positively happy that there was a change in government after many years of Congress rule and we anticipated the proverbial whiff of fresh air. 
 
Vajpayee was a moderate. He did not frighten the minorities in the same way as Modi does, despite his professed intentions of taking everyone along. Vajpayee, for example, retained an old Gandhi loyalist as Governor of Maharashtra, though he was a Christian. He appointed Muslims and other minority representatives to constitutional posts. LK Advani, his Home Minister, had asked me to chair a committee on police reforms and later nominated me as member of one of the four committees that went into different aspects of national security after Kargil happened. Perhaps, Modi should make some such small gestures for minority communities, Muslims in particular, as a token of not distrusting them. I am not sure if it will work in the present charged atmosphere, but it is worth trying.

I do not know how Sahitya Akademi awards are dished out. I presume there is an expert body appointed by the Council which decides on the merits of writers and artistes. As regards government awards, I do know if patronage plays a large part in the selection process. I served on one such committee with the Vice President of India as the Chairman. He was an old BJP chief minister but very straightforward and fair. Our committee had a Muslim MP from the Congress party and all the discussions were very cordial. I was impressed with the proceedings.
 
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As regards the Padma Awards, I found many individuals approaching me at different times for endorsements and recommendations. I did not know that such gratuitous expressions of opinions about work you are not familiar with have any effect at all and incidentally they did not! When I was in Punjab, the Governor SS Ray asked me to recommend three of my officers for the Padma Shri. I recommended my Intelligence Chief who happened to be a Sikh and who was really an outstanding officer. He later became the Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission and even later, the Governor of Manipur. The other two officers I recommended were on the frontline in the fight against the terrorists. Since they were more taxed than others, I sent in their names. One happened to be a Muslim and the other from the Scheduled Castes. The government, I later learnt, checked out my selections with the CPM leaders of Punjab. Obviously, they endorsed my judgement. 
 
The very next year, the Cabinet Secretary, who was my own very dear friend BG Deshmukh, called to tell me that the head of the NSG had succeeded in convincing the authorities to award him the Padma Shri for his part in the Black Thunder operation. Sardar Buta Singh, who was the then Home Minister, demanded a similar honour for KPS Gill, the DGP of Punjab. KPS was facing allegations of sexual misconduct made by a Punjab cadre IAS woman officer. I felt that if the NSG chief, who had a very minor part to play in the entire Black Thunder operation, was going to be given the Padma Shri, then KPS Gill who had worked day and night for more than a week and was the actual hero of the operation, could not be left out on any criterion of justice and fair play, despite the case against him. This is my experience of how the Padma awards are apportioned! 

Meanwhile, Modi will have to deliver on his promises, which will be difficult as long as the fanatical elements of the Sangh Pariwar create trouble for him on the ground. Nevertheless, he will have to deal with them if he wants to continue as Prime Minister for the next two terms or more, in order to fulfil his vision of ‘acche din’.

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