And This Week's Padma Awards

As the first month of the new decade draws to a close, I find myself contemplating the values and priorities of the age we live in. Delhi had one of the coldest Januaries of the decade and homeless people continued to shiver and die on the capital’s streets. The Delhi government, obsessed with becoming a new age city for the commonwealth games, actually reduced the number of shelters over the past few years. It actually took a Supreme Court order to get the nation’s capital to make some cosmetic gestures towards the homeless and the media did give the story a day’s attention. 

But in the midst of the cruel winter there were more pressing issues at hand. The poor bundled next to each other shivering on pavements while Preity Zinta apparently managed to get herself locked up inside a toilet at the capital’s airport. When the door jammed, she later revealed that she thought she would die. Seriously, every major paper reported this sensational news since Zinta, like some well known members of the council of ministers, also tweeted her tale. She possibly became a real life heroine by scaling the wall of the toilet and escaping the death-trap!

I know it may seem like a cheap shot to ridicule the travails of the rich and famous--being stuck in a public loo could be as horrific for the likes of Zinta as it may be for a pavement dweller to lose a blanket. Discomfort is relative. Life goes on in the country of plenty and huge disparity. After all this is the age of the robber barons—we no longer hold them accountable, we simply honour them and damn public morality. Consider the conferring of a Padma Bhushan on Sant Chatwal the controversial NRI hotelier who spent time in jail for bank fraud. The man is reportedly a mover and shaker in the US and India. Former HT editor Vir Sanghvi wrote in his column that no less than the highest office in the land pushed his name for the award.

Chatwal has been investigated for defrauding US banks but he gets an honour meant for people with remarkable achievements or service to the Indian nation. Meanwhile, the man considered the father of the nation was belittled by BJP president Nitin Gadkari who reportedly compared Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi to Mahatma Gandhi. Perhaps the novice president was so intimidated by Modi’s presence at a function in Porbandar to mark Gandhi’s death anniversary that he lost control of his thoughts and words. Either way he said in his speech (that he’s tried hard to subsequently explain) that Gandhi had a similar philosophy as Sangh ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya and that Modi is on the same path.

I won’t even go so far as to say that some critics would argue that this fuzzy thinking is akin to suggesting that those who come from the same ideological family as Nathuram Godse actually had the same goals and philosophy as the Mahatma. It’s a ridiculous and foolish argument besides being an insult to Gandhiji, that too on the day that marks the anniversary of the day he was shot by Godse.

As for Modi and Gandhi being on the same path, I guess if we are generous to Gadkari we can say he implied that they are both Gujratis. Beyond that there cannot be two more different personalities. One invented non-violent protest, and was heartbroken by the massacres of the Partition that he never accepted. The other heartlessly presided over the worst massacre in independent India and subsequently made any number of speeches to exploit the communal divide and win elections. In 1959, years after Gandhiji’s assassination on 30 January 1948, the great American civil rights activist Martin Luther King travelled to India to understand the Mahatma’s technique of non-violent protest. Even today, President Obama quotes Gandhi, and while Mr Modi may be a big fish in the pond of Gujarat, the Americans are not likely to consider giving him even an visa anytime soon.

But then if Sant Chatwal is a new national hero, perhaps Modi too can argue with reason that he is on the same path as Gandhi? Why don't we go a step forward and start declaring Padma awards every week? This may well prove to be an unexpected motivational mantra. This week, thus, in addition to Mr Chatwal, we could also honour Mr Modi, the Delhi government, the Preity lady -- and perhaps even the chiefs of the RSS and the BJP for declaring, even if belatedly, that Mumbai is for all Indians...