One of the lasting images of the recent Padma Awards ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhawan was that of the 72-year old environmentalist Tulsi Gowda walking barefoot to receive the honour. Tulsi Gowda belongs to the Halakki tribe of Uttara Kannada District in Karnataka and is known as the encyclopaedia of forests because of her special knowledge of plants and herbs. She has planted over 30,000 saplings as part of her campaign to conserve the environment.
Till some years ago, one could never have imagined someone like her making it to the glittering ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhawan and winning the prestigious national award. It has now become possible because of the sustained efforts of the current Central government to democratise the Padma Awards and ensure that it also goes to the unsung achievers in far-flung corners of India.
The process of taking the Padma Awards to these remarkable individuals who put service before self began after Narendra Modi became the PM. The share of such faceless individuals grew substantially when the Padma Awards were announced in January 2017 and thereafter.
The 2017 list came as a pleasant surprise to people across the country when the government released a brief sketch of such awardees along with their achievements. Among them was Karimul Haque of Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, who was popular in that district as the Ambulance Dada. Haque is from a remote village that lacks basic infrastructure like proper roads, transport and healthcare. As a result, he was unable to shift his ailing mother to a hospital in time. This personal tragedy set him thinking on what he could do to help people in urgent need of medical attention. The result was his decision to convert his motorcycle into an ambulance, especially to help women patients living in far-flung areas. He announced that all expectant mothers could avail of his makeshift ambulance for free to get to the nearest civil hospital in time for delivery. This was a real boon for women in the district.
Ever since the prime minister nudged the Padma Awards Committee to look at unsung heroes and honour them, it was assisted by a team of researchers that mines data and pulls out such precious nuggets for consideration. In most of these cases, there is not even a formal nomination by anyone and the would-be recipients are taken by surprise when they are informed of the government’s decision to award them. One such was Daripalli Ramaiah, who travels widely on his cycle and plants saplings to improve forest cover.
In 2019, the awards committee selected Madurai Chinna Pillai, a 66-year-old illiterate citizen who popularised community-based micro-finance scheme decades ago. Another high achiever who was honoured that year was Ladakh's 'Wonder Surgeon' Tsering Norboo, who conducted 500 surgeries per year for the past 50 years. Sulagitti Narasamma of Tumakuru district in Karnataka, a midwife who had assisted over 15,000 women in their deliveries without expectation of a fee, made it to the 2018 list.
In the recent Padma awards list, apart from Tulsi Gowda, there was Harekala Hajabba, an uneducated fruit seller who set apart his earnings to start a primary school. One can go on and on, but some stories are exemplary and heart-warming, like that of Devarapalli Prakash Rao, a tea-seller from Odisha, who is popularly known as the 'Tea-Seller Guru'. He sets apart half of his income from his tea stall to provide education to children living in the slums. He has set up a school called Asha O Ashwasana. These are people driven by a spirit of service, but more importantly individuals who have no expectation of recognition, let alone at the national level. Jagdish Lal Ahuja figured in the 2020 list of Padma Awardees. This 84-year old citizen offers free food to patients and relatives outside a major hospital in Chandigarh.
Seven years ago, when Modi became the prime minister, he had said he was an outsider to the corridors of power in Delhi because he had spent much of his life in Gujarat and in many states as an RSS pracharak. His travels to remote parts of Gujarat and other states enabled him to see the contrast between the snobbishness of people in Lutyens’ Delhi and the innocence of the millions who did meaningful work away from the glare of publicity in the hinterland. This understanding must have prompted him to encourage the Padma Awards jury to look at the Good Samaritans who are silently contributing to nation-building. As a result, at least about 20 per cent of the awards go to such individuals. This is not to say that the high achievers of Delhi and Mumbai must be excluded. Delhi houses premier institutions of national importance and the significant contribution of those manning them must be acknowledged. For example, during the battle against Covid-19, many individuals from institutions like AIIMS and ICMR have worked selflessly to contain the epidemic and they deserve recognition.
When the change came over five years ago, Lutyens’ Delhi seemed uncomfortable with the idea of sharing their Padma moment with such ordinary individuals, many of whom attended the awards ceremony in their spartan attire and sometimes even without footwear.
One hopes the peoples’ Padma approach will extend to other areas like key appointments made by the government to ensure proper representation of individuals from different regions of the country.
A Surya Prakash, Former chairman of Prasar Bharati and Scholar, Democracy Studies (suryamedia@gmail.com)