The Bharat Ratna, Padmavibhushan, Padmabhushan and Padmashree are India’s civilian awards in a descending hierarchy. These awards were instituted in the year 1954 once India became republic and are supposedly conferred on people for their distinguished services in various disciplines, of which, art, literature, social service, medicine, sports, public affairs and science are prominent. Our awards, though dubious, have a history of well over six decades which makes a decent sample size to unearth their credibility.

The recently announced awards raised a lot of eyebrows, the padma awards garnered lot of attention simply because of their modus operandi. Why does this happen so often? We have seldom or never seen any awards sans controversies. India, being a conglomerate of various linguistic states has its base in Delhi, every state is asked to nominate their respective nominees for awards to the committee and a handful number of people sitting in Delhi make the final decision. If you look at the history of these awards, you would feel that all non Hindi states and especially the south Indian states have every reason to feel hard done-by.

Every common Indian’s realm of expertise is invariably cinema, sports, politics. So, almost everyone is a connoisseur in these fields and can opine on the awards conferred in these disciplines. It’s pretty conspicuous that Hindi speakers and bollywood actors are the largest beneficiaries of India’s dodgy language policy and much to the bewilderment of non Hindians, it has extended to the awards as well with bollywood actors reaping maximum benefits. Unequivocally one can say that the yardstick isn’t same for all Indians.

Can you figure out what distinguished contributions have padma awardees Saif Ali Khan, Vidya Balan, Ajay Devagan, Anupam Kher and Priyanka Chopra done to Indian cinema which the legends of south viz Vishnuvardhan, Anant Nag, Bharathi, Leelavathi haven’t. While the former have worked in Hindi cinemas the latter have toiled hard for decades in Kannada industry. Do they believe that (Indian cinema = Hindi) alone? Probably yes, or else these blunders wouldn’t be rife. If you put those above names in a balance sheet with Hindi actors on one side and non Hindi actors on the other, the balance sheet would be in a complete disarray with bollywood actors being trounced in both experience and quality front. So, it would be fair to call the award process as an aberration with deluge of errors and understandably the south Indian actors have been perennial bridesmaids.

If a legend like S. Janaki is conferred with padmashree, a decade after her contemporary Latha Mangeshkar was embellished with Bharat Ratna, you know something is seriously amiss. S. Janaki rightly declined to accept the award which was too little too late. S.L Bhairappa, a renowned scholar in Kannada has made a niche in Kannadigas’ hearts for many decades now, and his works have been translated to various Indian languages and have gone on to become best sellers. At 84, he has been awarded padmashree along with bollywood’s bits and pieces actors, which is indeed a testimony for the dubious yardstick in place. As a Kannadiga, I personally feel that it is an affront on SLB. I would love to know on behalf of 60 million Kannadigas, how would SLB feel being awarded padmashree with a medal and certificate in Hindi for his exquisite works in Kannada.

Well, there have also been instances of political lobbying for these awards with the prowess of state leaders deciding the fate of the awards, we know it's a dangerous proposition, or else, how would a Tamil comedian Vivek win favours. One more detrimental aspect of these awards is the innate inhibitions of the government conferring awards with respect to their political inclinations, Kannadigas have always been contendors for the wooden spoon unless you are a genius like Sir M. Visweshwaraiah or C.N.R Rao.

Last year we saw a gentleman of yesteryears Madan Mohan Malaviya being conferred with Bharat Ratna posthumously, his contribution was supposedly the Hindu Banaras University. If that is the supposed yardstick, where would you put Nalvadi Krishnaraj Wodeyar? Unfortunately the gullible Kannadigas do not have the political prowess in their repertoire, which has often been their nemesis.

The nepotism doesn’t end here , it has had its say in various sports awards as well. How would you justify M.S Dhoni with just over 3 years in international cricket being awarded Khel Ratna in 2008 ahead of the legends like Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly. Even though it's apparent that language had no role in this howler, you simply cannot deny nepotism.

So, finally how would you quell this aberration and restore credibility to all these Indian awards? Well, first and foremost we need to admit that no Indian has a pan Indian identity. Declaring all 22 scheduled languages as official would be the first right step in bringing equality. Apparently we have a over centralized set up and a language policy that propagates hindi imposition. For the awards, we need to have representatives of each state at Delhi presenting their case on a man to man basis, this would provide everyone a fair crack at the cherry. You simply cannot afford to have a handful elite Hindi people sitting in Delhi and calling shots because India is not Hindi Republic. (IPA Service)