Message to farmers, strike at Congress, as Modi govt announces 3 more Bharat Ratnas

The honour for Charan Singh, Rao and Swaminathan is similarly replete with political messaging on several levels in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, continuing a Modi-era trend when it comes to State awards.

At five, one more than the four announced in 1999, this is the maximum number of Bharat Ratnas announced in a year.

Charan Singh was a prominent farmer leader with a strong base among the Jats of western UP. In offering him the highest civilian award, the Modi government has reached out to farmers of north India in general and the Jat community of western UP, Rajasthan and Haryana in particular. Significantly, the Jats of Haryana and western UP were at the forefront of the year-long agitation against the three farm laws legislated in 2021, on the borders of the national capital, eventually forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce their withdrawal.

The award comes at a time when there is growing speculation about the Rashtriya Lok Dal, set up by Charan Singh’s son Ajit Singh and now led by his grandson Jayant Choudhury, breaking away from the Opposition INDIA bloc to join the NDA. “Dil jeet liya (You’ve won my heart),” Jayant posted soon after the announcement of the award.

Earlier, after the Bharat Ratna was named for Karpoori Thakur, who had pioneered EBC reservation in Bihar, the JD(U) split from INDIA and joined the NDA.

But the symbolism of the award to Charan Singh does not stop here. The farmer leader spent 38 years in the Congress before splitting the party in UP after it failed to get a majority in the 1967 state Assembly elections, and walked out with 16 MLAs. He then became the Chief Minister with the support of the Jana Sangh — the BJP’s forerunner — along with the socialists, the Communists and the Swatantra Party.

While that government proved short-lived, it didn’t halt Charan Singh. He returned as CM for another short tenure in 1970 with the support of the Congress.

After some more experiments with other parties, in 1977, post the Emergency, Charan Singh again found himself in the opposite ranks to the Congress, joining the Janata Party, which was formed by the merger of various Opposition parties including the Jana Sangh. He was Deputy Prime Minister in the Janata government that came to power, in which later BJP luminaries Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani were also ministers. Once the Janata started cracking due to its ideological contradictions, Charan Singh quit.

This time, he became PM for a brief while with the support of Indira Gandhi’s Congress.

The Bharat Ratna to Charan Singh hence is recognition for a leader who stood up against the Congress, and was a co-traveller of the Jana Sangh for some years. In his post on the Bharat Ratna, Modi said Charan Singh’s “deep dedication to our farmer brothers and sisters and his commitment to democracy during the Emergency are an inspiration for the whole country”.

The outreach to farmers is further exemplified in the award to M S Swaminathan. It was the Swaminathan Committee that recommended in 2006 that the MSP should be 1.5 times the cost of production that a farmer incurs. He is also credited as the architect of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, making India self-reliant in foodgrain production. “Dr Swaminathan’s visionary leadership has not only transformed Indian agriculture but also ensured the nation’s food security and prosperity,” the PM posted.

However, the most significant choice for the Bharat Ratna Friday was former PM P V Narasimha Rao, the second life-long Congress leader to be honoured with this award by the Modi government after Pranab Mukherjee. Significantly, both the leaders had a testy relationship with the Gandhi family, and the Modi government honour for Rao comes just at a time when the PM has stepped up his attacks on the Congress, particularly the Gandhis. It fits into the BJP narrative that Congress leaders who don’t have the Gandhi family’s blessings don’t get too far in the party or find themselves pushed to the sidelines.

For the BJP, the honour to Rao also serves more purposes as he is seen as the liberator of the Indian economy, as well as the PM who many believe “let” the Babri Masjid demolition happen in 1992. While the Congress did not acknowledge Rao for a long time after his term as PM ended, the Bharat Ratna serves well the BJP claim that the Congress had mismanaged the economy, while tacitly honouring a leader who ended up giving a huge push to the Ram Temple movement, which made full circle recently with the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Modi wrote on X, “As a distinguished scholar and statesman, Narasimha Rao Garu served India extensively in various capacities… (His) tenure as Prime Minister was marked by significant measures that opened India to global markets, fostering a new era of economic development.”

What would also have been on the BJP’s mind are the coming Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections, held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha. Rao, who belonged to the Telangana region, remains the pride of Andhra as the only leader from the unified state to have ever become PM. He was also the CM of unified Andhra.

The BJP, which is seeking to increase its Lok Sabha tally in the South, is currently in talks with both the ruling YSRCP and the main opposition TDP in Andhra, underlining its own importance for the two parties.

The others conferred Bharat Ratna since Modi came to power in 2014 include educationist, freedom fighter and once-Congress president Madan Mohan Malviya; Vajpayee; Assamese singer and musician Bhupen Hazarika; and RSS leader Nanaji Deshmukh.

(with inputs by Deeptiman Tiwary)