Madan Mohan Malviya (1861-1946) has got the Bharat Ratna almost 69 years after his death. From “Mahamana” he has become a “Bharat Ratna”. Did he get India’s prestigious postcolonial civilian honour for being a proponent of the Hindu Mahasabha, a political organisation founded in 1915 to espouse the Hindu political cause, or did he get it for building an educational institution called the Banaras Hindu University (BHU)? The university was founded a year later, in 1916. There is no clarity yet from the Union cabinet’s resolution. If “Mahamana” Malviya has been honoured for being a founding member of the Hindu Mahasabha, the government should have first chosen A.O. Hume, who founded the Indian National Congress as a “safety valve” for the British Empire. The Congress would later lead India’s struggle for freedom and achieve it, whereas the Hindu Mahasabha would only spew venom against the Congress’s all-embracing politics. The Mahasabha fuelled the fire ignited by the Muslim League, which effectively consumed the dream of keeping India united. But if Malviya has been posthumously given the Bharat Ratna for founding the BHU, the government has only exposed itself to some criticism. If Malviya can have the Bharat Ratna, what stops Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-98) from receiving it? Syed Ahmad founded an educational institution that later came to be famously called the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). If Narendra Modi’s cabinet had just clubbed Syed Ahmad’s name together with Malviya’s, it would not just have been a great political coup, capping the BJP’s recent dream electoral run. It would also have silenced Modi’s critics and made him a nation-builder, erasing forever the stigma of the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 13:35:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015