The Greatest Indian After Gandhi

Three-Way Voting Process

• Our 26-member jury has finalised the 50 top nominees from a list of 100
• Readers and viewers can vote online at thegreatestindian.in till June 25
• From July 1 to 31, a nationwide opinion poll will be held to choose the top ten
• The name of the Greatest Indian after Gandhi will be announced on August 15

Selected response from the readers:

Gavaskar Before Shastri?

• Sajan, United States: Isn’t it a travesty to exclude Lal Bahadur Shastri from the list of the greatest Indians? How myopic can we get? And by what measure can Sunil Gavaskar be placed above Shastri?
• Kamlesh Maheshwari, Bangalore: Shastri’s contributions to the country are undeniable. He stands tall because he owned responsibility for a train mishap and resigned as railway minister, whereas leaders today do not seem to have any accountability.
• Chittaranjan, Bangalore: The greatest Indian after Gandhi? It’s J. Krishnamurti, of course.
  G. Niranjan Rao, Hyderabad: Jawaharlal Nehru
• R.K. Singh, Gurgaon: Touch and go between Nehru, Patel.
• Pramod Srivastava, New Delhi: The exclusion of Anna Hazare appears unjust and biased.

A. Raja, Surely?

• Kiran N. Jadhav, Pune: The book The Makers of the Universe (Oxford University) lists 100 people who have influenced the world over 10,000 years. The first name on the list is that of Gautam Buddha and the fourth name is that of Dr Ambedkar. But the elitist Indian media refuses to acknowledge what the world has accepted.
• Sumirti, Salem: The search should have been for the most popular Indian after Gandhi. How can you have Mother Teresa, JRD Tata, Homi Bhabha, Dhyan Chand, Rajnikanth, Nehru and Patel on the same list?
• C.P. Nair, Kerala: Surely A. Raja should have figured in the list? Our ancestors might have
  discovered ‘Zero’ but it is Raja who has taught us to count the zeroes.
• Santosh Gairola, Taiwan: Both Dhirubhai Ambani and Ramnath Goenka on the same list? Should the parents of R.K. Narayan and R.K. Laxman be called India’s
  luckiest parents? After all, two of their children made it to the list.
• Mukund, Pune: Why does the search for the greatest Indian resemble TV shows like Indian Idol and i with contestants pleading for votes?

It’s Gandhi

• Soumya Saxena, Germany: People who are wondering why Gandhi is rated the greatest Indian are the ones who have never bothered to read about him or his writings. Comparing him with Bhagat Singh, Savarkar or Netaji shows people know little about these people. Bose was an ardent supporter of Gandhi; he chose a different path but never lost his respect for the man. Some people are yet to get out of the spell of Rang De Basanti.
• Sandilya, Chennai: Gandhi’s greatest contribution was to keep Netaji and his brand of politics away from the mainstream. Netaji was a patriot but was emotional and impractical. His radical functioning would have led to more chaos.
• Ranjan Mondal, Calcutta: There is not one in the list of nominees who comes anywhere near the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi.