Does the award make one a ‘ratna’ … or does one have to be a ‘ratna’ first to deserve the award?
It is just over a month now, and they’re still discussing if Sachin Tendulkar deserved it. What is interesting is that that many writers who have no background in sciences have implicitly counted themselves as qualified enough to (be able to) place a verdict on why (certain) scientists should get it and no sportsperson should. So these ‘Gods of Verdict’ have effortlessly produced news-content that, at best, only mimics sound-reasoning. I take the opportunity to educate them in this article. Let me tackle each criticism one by one.
The Bharat Ratna was not introduced to recognize contributions to sports: I completely agree … and I’d like to add that the Biblical sciences didn’t allow for the possibility that our planet revolves around the sun (in fact, the Pope of Alexandria preferred believing conversely). Let us examine this point more closely. The Bharat Ratna previously recognized “exceptional service towards the advancement of art, literature and science,” and “public service of the highest order.” After all, art and literature enrich life; science contributes to progress; and public services add value to living. But I urge you to look deeper. There is something more to them. Here are a few hints: Mother Teresa never discriminated between those whom she helped; Pandit Ravi Shankar was frequently accompanied by Ustad Alla Rakha on the tabla during his public renditions when they created music together; he also composed a piece ‘Prabhuji Daya Karo’ with George Harrison, the lead guitarist of the Beatles; and CV Raman admired the works of Einstein and Compton. The boundaries of religion, geography, history, politics, color and culture blur away in these higher forms of human involvement. Each unites people in its own way. The Bharat Ratna therefore, represents the opinion of Bharat (the nation, united as a whole) on who is truly a ratna. Now, one shouldn’t underestimate the role of sports in bringing about a connection of sentiments in a nation of diverse population like ours. We should count ourselves as very lucky here, and if you think otherwise, imagine which team the Scottish (part of the UK) would support in a game between England (again in the UK) and France. Bengalis and Tamilians celebrated alike when Sachin thrashed the Australian bowlers in 1998, or when he scored the first ever ODI double-hundred against South Africa in 2010. Sports, therefore unites people just as much as the arts, sciences and public services (for instance, watch the German crowd shouting ‘Deutschland’ in chorus in a football game). Therefore, it is only fitting to broaden the scope of the award to recognize “exceptional service/performance of the highest order in any field of human endeavor.” Those who still think that the inclusion of sports will ‘degrade’ the Bharat Ratna, will surely identify themselves with the Church that didn’t want to ‘degrade’ the status of Biblical sciences by making way for modern scientific thought.
The award was announced in haste without careful thought: If one looks carefully, this is akin to asking why Prof. CNR Rao wasn’t awarded sooner. Welcome to the world of sciences: while the benefits from sports and arts are instantaneous (you derive immediate pleasure when you witness a record being broken in front of your eyes, or when you see an artiste perform live), the benefits from science take time to realise. It takes months of research to arrive at conclusive results, which must then be published in scientific journals and conference proceedings, each of which involves a rigorous peer-review process that runs again over several months. Publication is important because that is how a scientist’s contribution reaches other scientists and eventually the general public. Assessment of how significant a contribution is (and consequently its reward), therefore, takes considerable time. This is not just the case with the Bharat Ratna, but in fact, also with the Nobel memorial prize (among still others). John Nash, for example, received the latter in 1994 for his contribution(s) published in the early fifties (and his papers are still being cited today). It is only natural to expect a ratna to receive a prize for arts and sports quicker than he would if he were in the sciences. This doesn’t necessarily imply that awarding Sachin was a hasty decision.
Dhyan Chand and Vishwanathan Anand didn’t receive it so far: I agree that both are deserving candidates of the Bharat Ratna (all the more reason for including games and sports in the list). I, however, see a play of negations (really unnecessary ones) here – shouldn’t articles on why they deserve the award (and not on why Sachin doesn’t), logically speaking, be more apt here? The idea is to strengthen the cases of both Dhyan Chand and Anand for the award rather than whine over Sachin’s. By the way, Ramanujan, the great Indian mathematician doesn’t have a Bharat Ratna either … but I’m not using this snippet of information to build a case against CNR Rao’s award here.
Sachin’s achievements are questionable: Now, this is really desperate. If one finds the need to stoop to the level of handpicking areas like captaincy records, and batting averages (in which Sachin is still ahead of many, although only behind less than 20 others), just for the heck of making a case against his award, then one should, at the first place, admit that he is indeed deserving. With averages though, there is something interesting worth observing. Using elementary math, it is easy to show that getting seven heads in ten tosses of a fair coin is way way more likely than getting 70 in 100. The point is simple: it is way more difficult to maintain a high batting average for 200 matches than it is to maintain the same in just 50 (even if one doesn’t account for ageing). Further, even if an exceptionally high batting average in cricket (or an outstanding captaincy record for that matter) were important enough to be counted as the equivalent of getting the Nobel prize in the sciences – then saying that the Bharat Ratna should be given to Sachin, only if his batting average is exceptionally high, is equivalent to saying that it should be given to Prof. CNR Rao, only if he is a Nobel laureate (and he isn’t).
Can we not for once just be content (without too much complaining) that the Bharat Ratna has been awarded to two very special people who have done very well in their own fields to deserve it? Inspiration has no unique source, so one could be inspired by both of them even if one isn’t a scientist or a cricketer.
Acknowledgement: The author thanks Ms. Priyanka Joshi (Marie Curie Fellow at Cambridge, England) for the fruitful discussion that motivated the thought behind this article.