The other day on a Telugu channel, I saw the CM of AP Mr. Naidu advocating Bharat Ratna for Late NTR. This discussion ignited me to write my thoughts. I am writing this blog after a fortnight of our arrival in India. NTR started his career as an actor and built up an excellent image for himslef portraying as KRISHNA, ‘RAMA & DURYODHANA etc. And this mythological charisma only fetched him to enter into politics at the fag end of his film career. He was novice in politic till then. And what was his contribution to the state or nation during his acting years. What did he do for the poor or downtrodden. But whereas PV has always been associated himself with public causes, participated in movements for liberation state and slowly climbed the ranks of political cadre, he became CM, central minister and ultimately became first non-Hindi speaking PM from south. And benefits of landmark economic reforms brought in by him are still being reaped by nation. It is a fact that subsequent PMs Mr. Vajpayee, & Mr. Manmohan Singh followed his policies of reforms. He had taken a firm grip on arguably one of the most ungovernable countries in the world as such and with a deft hand he had converted his Lok Sabha minority into a working majority to get on with the business of governance. His major successes were India’s economic reforms and the confidence inspired in the western democracies that apprehensions about the Govt’s stability were ill founded.
The hallmark of his track record was his ability to forge a consensus on any crisis facing the Indian polity. PV the scholar statesman had put his indelible impression on the policies of nation
Natwar Singh in his book “One Life Is Not Enough” referred to PV as “unlike Nehru his knowledge of Sanskrit was profound, Nehru had temper, PV a temperament. His roots were deep in spiritual and religious soil of India. He did not need to discover India”. While APJ Abdul Kalam, former President, described him as ”Patriotic statesman who believed that nation is bigger than, the political system” His term was a colourful one in INDIAN history.
Here, I feel it is prudent to make a mention of recently awarded “Bharat Ratnas’’ to AB Vajpayee & Late Madan Mohan Malavia, which was certainly a welcome move by NDA Govt, It was announced a day before their birth anniversaries. Incidentally both were born on Dec 25th, the year may be different. The honor for Gwalior born Vajpayee who was country’s PM first in 1996 and then aga from 1998-2004 and the awards given after years of demands from people across party affiliations and public at large. The 90 year old veteran restarted Bhartiya Jansangh as Bhartiy Janta party in 1980 and was first head of Govt from outside Congress party to serve a full 5 year term and he was a member of Lok Sabha for 10 terms and was an orator par excellence, while Malavia ji was a president Indian National Congress party for 2 terms and was among the first leaders of hindu mahasabha , a right wing organization. He besides being a freedom fighter and a politician, was also a great educationist, who founded Banaras Hindu University in 1916. I do not really know where NTR stands vis-a –vis Narasimha Rao, A B Vajpayee, Pt Madan Mohan Malavia. I dismayed at the delay in honoring such a profound personality. And I strongly feel that there are many more personalities deserving this highest honor more than NTR.
