The Bharat Ratna

Sir Sachin Tendulkar and Prof. CNR Rao have been awarded the Highest Civilian Award i.e. Bharat Ratna. I on my part first of all congratulate both of the recipients.

Today it was very disturbing for me as there is debate going on around the Bharat Ratna. People at the helm of affairs and responsible people are making fun of it and playing politics around this award. It is very disgusting to listen to the people who call themselves “RajNeta” are degrading the stature of highest civilian award. Here there is politics going around the conferment of Bharat Ratna to Sir Sachin Tendulkar. Therefore here I will talk about Sir Tendulkar only as there is no controversy regarding the conferment of award to Prof. CNR Rao.

JD(U) leader Shivanad Tiwari has alleged that Sir Sachin didn’t dserve the award because he has earned crores of Rupees and he did not play for free. Now I would like to cite some of the quotes on Sir Sachin by different people of World:

Mathew Hayden: I have seen God, he bats at no. 4 for India.

Sir Donald Bradman: I saw him playing on television and was struck by his technique, so I asked my wife to come look at him. Now I never saw myself play, but I feel that this player is playing much the same as I used to play, and she looked at him on Television and said yes, there is a similarity between the two... his compactness, technique, stroke production... it all seemed to gel.

Barry Richards: Sachin is cricket’s god.

A placard at the SCG: Commit all your crimes when Sachin is batting. They will go unnoticed because even the Lord is watching.

Hashim Amla: Nothing bad can happen to us if we're on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it.

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova: Sachin was so focused. He never looked like getting out. He was batting with single-minded devotion. It was truly remarkable. It was a lesson.

Dennis Lillee: If I've to bowl to Sachin, I'll bowl with my helmet on. He hits the ball so hard.

Peter Roebuck: On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This Genius can stop time in India!!

Brian Lara: "Sachin is a genius. I'm a mere mortal. When I speak about cricket, I will speak about Tendulkar. Just like you mention Mohammad Ali when you mention boxing and Michael Jordan when it comes to basketball."

Andy Flower: "There are two kind of batsmen in the world. One, Sachin Tendulkar. Two, all the others."

Allan Donald: “During Our Team meetings. We often speak about the importance of first 12 balls to Tendulkar. If you get him then you can thank your stars otherwise it could mean that tough times lie ahead”.

Ravi Shastri: He is someone sent up from there to play cricket and go back.

Mark Taylor: We did not lose to a team called India…..We lost to a man called Sachin.

The number is endless whole book can be written on quotes on Sir Tendulkar. Now some facts about Sir Tendulkar.  1) He adopted 200 orphan children and pays school and tuition fees of them. 2) Tendulkar also helped a telethon raise Rs.7 crore for schools. 3)Tendulkar paid the total expense of surgical treatment of Dalbir Singh Gill, a former cricketer who played with him at the under-17 level.

Now after reading all this we should see the criteria for Bharat Ratna. The Govt. scheme Says:

It is awarded in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order in any field of human Endeavour.

I think I did not need to mention his records in the cricket but after reading all the quotes on Sir Tendulkar and his social works everyone believes he is the best in the world of Cricket. The Scheme of the award says exceptional service/ performance. The record clearly indicates that he has given that exception performance. So it’s a request to the people having mindset Like of Shivanad tiwari “think before you speak and if you can’t speak good words then do not speak”.

Bharat Ratna means a Gem of the country , and the profile of Sir Tedulkar shows that He was the gem of the country. There should not be any controversy regarding the conferment of Award to Sir Tendulkar. There should not be politics on this. People are alleging the time as they say it was given to influence the youth voters. Now I am a youth voter, can anyone tell me how am I influenced by this act of govt. to vote for Congress. Rather if govt. have been not awarded this I would have been unhappy.

Now, there is question as to why not Major DhyanChand did get the Award. I feel that he deserves the award and only one idea which come in my mind that Sir Sachin has been awarded before just because he is alive and rules have been changes just now few days back.  And I feek Major DhayanChand should also be awarded with this posthumously because he deserves that. There is no question regarding that.

Further, A new debate has arose and credit should be given to BJP. People of BJP have claimed that why not Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee has been conferred this award. I can tell you very honestly there is no honest intention of BJP for claiming Bharat Ratna to Shri Vajpayee. They are doing it just because of Politics. But I believe that he deserves the award too because of following reasons:

1)      He was one of the best national statesmen.

2)      He was the man behind making India and Indian politics from uni-polar to Bi-polar at the National Level.

3)      He is been regarded as one of the most developing and best PM of this country.

4)      Under his government India became Nuclear power

5)      He was the man who was trusted by his PM to do the talks  on behalf of Indian government with the foreign nationals even when he was opposition leader.

6)      He was the man who started the tradition of White Paper (that is being presented by govt. on any issue) in Indian Parliament.

7)      He was one of the good poet of Hindi

8)      His contributions in Indian politics are memorable and uncountable.

9)      Last but not least, when a man like Rajiv Gandhi can be conferred with Bharat Ratna then Mr. Vajpayee is surely a Bharat Ratna.

Lastly, I would say that the mindset of Indian Politicians and people are degrading day by day and it should be stopped if India has to progress. From the land of “People Devoted in the path of Enlightenment”(meaning of Word Bharat) to People devoted in darkness.”