A Toast To Our Thought Leaders

Right-of-centre as the new national narrative

Oxford historian, veteran journalist and an authoritative voice from the Indian right Swapan Dasgupta is a recipient of Padma Bhushan this year. Even while being on the right side of the political spectrum, Dasgupta never missed the chance to rebuke the Bharatiya Janata Party for its errors and omissions, as and when they surfaced.

Bibek Debroy, Cambridge economist and Indologist of high repute, gets Padma Shri. Besides steering the Railway Board and joining the NITI Aayog recently, he has also been Visiting Honorary Senior Research Fellow for Institute for South Asian Studies in National University of Singapore since May 2009. Both the awardees from the category of Literature and Education are on Swarajya’s Editorial Advisory Board.

It is a matter of pride for us that Mohandas Pai, chairman of Manipal Global Education, and a patron of Swarajya, has got a Padma Shri under the Trade and Industry category. He used to be a Member of the board of directors of Infosys, and Head – Administration, Education and Research, Financial, Human Resources, and Infosys Leadership Institute. As the CFO, he played a strategic role in transforming Infosys into one of the world’s most respected and widely known software services companies. He formulated the country’s first publicly articulated financial policy for the company.

Instituted in 1954, the Padma awards are given for distinguished work in Art, Literature and Education, Sports, Medicine, Social Work, Science and Engineering, Public Affairs, Civil Service, Trade and Industry etc. While the Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri have long reflected the predilection of the government of the day, the converse is not always true. Not every preferred face is conferred with this honour.

It might have been a fad of late to question the selection on political grounds or reject the honour when awarded to a few who thought they deserved more, but this selection is anything but a swift, arbitrary or whimsical decision of one individual. Recommendations are invited every year from all state and union territory governments, ministries and departments of the Government of India, governors, chief ministers, Members of Parliament and previous Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan awardees and Institutes of Excellence, which must reach the Padma Awards Committee constituted the Prime Minister by 1 October. The recommendations are then submitted to the Prime Minister and the President for their approval. No award is conferred except on the recommendation of the Awards Committee. The names of the award winners are published in the Gazette of India. The President may cancel and annul the award of the decoration to any person.

The state’s bestowal upon Dasgupta, Debroy and Pai is recognition of arrival of the centre-right narrative as the prime line of commentary on India’s political and economic affairs. Swarajya raises a toast to the intellectual warriors whose decades-long dedication to the nationalist cause, economic liberty and social service respectively shone in the backdrop of scholastic apartheid by the country’s Marxists and Nehruvian left.