Sachin - Bharat Ratna ???

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar

Well this has been a controversy for a few months now. After India won the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 (50 over), most of the Indians as well as the ministers have been pressurizing the government to give Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award.

front side

The Bharat Ratna was started in 1954 and has so far been given to 41 eminent personalities, none of whom are sports persons, the reason being the criteria for the highest and coveted honour. According to the criteria at present, the award is given to the person for their exceptional contribution in the fields of art, literature, science and social service. The criteria does not have any mention of sports. The government must first include the sports category in the list and then review it properly before going into any hasty decisions, since its the highest civilian honour we are talking about and it should be given full importance and respect. The sports ministry will have to present such a proposal for cabinet approval.

bottom side

Well, if Sachin gets this great honour then i want him to be the first one to get it just like he got the first 200* in the history of ODIs. But then it would be unfair to leave out other greats who have made our Mother India proud, like, Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Dhyan Chand, Vishwanathan Anand, Milkha Singh, and many more....but still i believe that the judgement should be correct and one should not go on with the present pleasantries but also look back at the past heroes.

Here's the list of all those legendary exceptional eminent personalities who won the Bharat Ratna :

1. Dr.Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan-1954
2. Dr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman-1954
3. Shri Chakravarti Rajagopalachari-1954
4. Dr. Mokshagundam Vivesvaraya-1955
5. Shri Jawaharlal Nehru-1955
6. Dr. Bhagwan Das-1955
7. Pt. Govind Ballabh Pan-1957
8. Dr. Dhonde Keshav Karve-1958
9. Shri Purushottam Das Tandon-1961
10. Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy-1961
11. Dr. Rajendra Prasad-1962
12. Dr. Zakir Hussain-1963
13. Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kane-1963
14. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri-1966
15. Smt. Indira Gandhi-1971
16. Shri Varahagiri Venkata Giri-1975
17. Shri Kumaraswamy Kamraj-1976
18. Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu)-1980
19. Shri Acharya Vinoba Bhave-1983
20. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan-1987
21. Shri Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran-1988
22. Dr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela-1990
23. Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedakr-1990
24. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel-1991
25. Shri Rajiv Gandhi-1991
26. Shri Morarji Ranchhodji Desai-1991
27. Shri Satyajit Ray-1992
28. Shri Maulana Abul Kalam Azad-1992
29. Shri Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata-1992
30. Shri Gulzari Lal Nanda-1997
31. Smt. Aruna Asaf Ali-1997
32. Shri (Dr.) Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam-1997
33. Smt. Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi-1998
34. Shri Chidambaram Subramaniam-1998
35. Pandit Ravi Shankar-1999
36. Loknayak Jayprakash Narayan-1999
37. Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi-1999
38. Prof. Amartya Sen-1999
39. Ustad Bismillah Khan-2001
40. Kumari Lata Dinanath Mangeshkar-2001
41. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi-2008

So, what do you think should happen? Should the government include sports category in the criteria? Should Sachin be given the most honourable Bharat Ratna? Or should others also be given the same after or before him? You decide and you get....