The honour the BJP Government bestowed upon Punjab’s five-time former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in 2015 has apparently ended up embarrassing the party. Often dubbed as the founder of the NDA, Badal on Thursday returned Padma Vibhushan — country’s second highest civilian award — to protest “betrayal of farmers”.
Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa too returned his Padma Bhushan award to oppose the farm laws. The BJP Government, in March 2019, had presented him the award after he announced to part ways with the Akali Dal following political differences with party chief Sukhbir Badal, in an apparent attempt to woo him.
The return of the honours by the two political veterans is being seen as symbolic of their attempts to completely disassociate themselves from the party they were in alliance with. Notably, SAD had, in September, snapped ties with the BJP over the farm Bills.
That was not all! Olympian Pargat Singh, currently the Congress legislator, has also announced to return his honours - Padma Shri and Arjuna awards. The list does not end here. Punjab’s sportspersons and Olympians have also written to President Ram Nath Kovind to return all the awards and honours “bestowed by the Government of India” on them.
As the farmers’ ongoing agitation against the Central farm legislations, with its epicenter in Punjab, turning into a mass movement with people from all walks of lives, notables or common, joining in, the decision by the “honoured”, especially Badal, to return the awards is expected to put a huge pressure on the Central Government.
Badal was one of the architects of BJP-SAD alliance with the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and is respected immensely by all, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had never hesitated to express his reverence towards the Akali patriarch.
“Hurt and Betrayed” by the Government’s attitude and actions against the farmers, Badal wrote, “Today, I feel so poor that at this stage of my life, I don’t have much else to sacrifice to express solidarity with the farmers.”
“Please get the Government to listen to farmers with love, compassion, understanding, and above all the respect that they fully deserve…I have truly begun to wonder why has the Government become so heartless, so cynical, so ungrateful to farmers,” Badal wrote in the letter he e-mailed to the President conveying his decision to return Padma award.
Akali stalwart maintained that he returned the Padma award “in protest against the betrayal of the farmers by the Government of India and against the shocking indifference and contempt with which the Government is treating the ongoing peaceful and democratic agitation of the farmers against the three farm Acts”.
Asserting that he owed so much to the farmers, Badal said, “I am who I am because of the people, especially the common farmer. Today, when I have lost more than my honour, I see no point in holding on to the Padma Vibhushan honour.”
Badal, describing farmers as his “second religious passion” after Panthic ideals of peace and communal harmony, stated, “Everything I have, everything I take pride in, every moment of glory or every office of public service that has been bestowed on me during my long public career has been purely because of my commitment to these ideals in which farmers have remained at the center of everything.”
“When the country honoured me with Padma Vibhushan, I knew that it was only in acknowledgement of my commitment to the people in which the farmers featured most prominently. I owe it to them,” he added.
Badal pointed that he had even “trusted the Government’s words” when the Ordinances were introduced, “but was shocked when the Government simply went back on its word” - describing the “period after betrayal” as “the most painful and embarrassing moment in my long political career. I just cannot put in words the pain and emotional stress which I have been going through since then”.
The former Chief Minister said he had been deeply pained to see “conspiracies and vicious propaganda” are unleashed to paint this peaceful struggle as anti-national.
Peeved over the Central Government’s apathetic attitude towards the farmers, former Akali leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa too announced to return his Padma Bhushan award.
“I have returned my Padma Bhushan in protest as farmers have been staging dharnas for the past two months but the Central Government is not ready to listen to them. When the BJP Government is ignoring our elderly people, the award is worthless to me,” said Dhindsa.
Dhindsa’s decision to return the award can be read as a blow to BJP’s plans to build a parallel leadership in Punjab, especially after the SAD’s decision to part ways. After Dhindsa moved out of the Akali Dal, he was considered to be close to the BJP, especially after he was awarded the Padma award.