To begin with, such three persons deserving of such an honour have to be, necessarily, unconventional and undaunted (= not fearing) lovers of their ideas and the truth behind them. The three living Indians whom this paper proposes to honour with the reward are impeccable (= unchallengeable) in their individual ways. They are: Sundarlal Bahuguna, Kiran Bedi and M.F. Hussain. Their common trait, inspite of their being in different fields, is their passionate devotion to their ideas. I take them in the order above.
Mr. Sundarlal Bahuguna has, today, become synonymous (= identified) with ‘Environment’. Ecology today is being regarded as a world-concern. The ‘Chipko’ movement of the aboriginals of the forest-bound regions of our country brings us back to the renewed significance of the phrase, ‘back to nature’. Mr. Bahuguna largely helped to inspire this faith in nature. He, perhaps, is the first person to make us alive to the danger that threatens due to the ruthless felling of the trees in the Himalayas. His initial move has, now received state patronage and is in a flourishing condition, although not without minor hindrances. Today we are well aware of the root causes of the landslides and the other kinds of ecological disasters that such felling of forests cause. But the first note was struck by Mr. Bahuguna. Felling of plants so ruthlessly makes a gap in the balance of nature’; creates a lack of harmony in our survival principle that involves the oxygen and carbon dioxide; deprives the herbivores of their primary food. It is needless to mention that today we have begun to realize the cosmic truth that the entire creation is a unity in diversity, although the knowledge as wisdom is limited to still very few.
The next star in my galaxy is a woman of strange combinations. Kiran Bedi-an IPS-is like a coconut-shell that hides a soft pulp beneath the hard crust cover. She has converted the Tihar Jail, which is notorious like a concentration camp, into a temple for conversion of souls. How such an officer, whose brash (= a little aggressive) conduct once threw the entire Bar of the High Court out of gear, could conceive of such a reformative plan for the criminal of the jail is a mystery of its own kind. It is accepted that her move to befriend lifers (= life-term servers in prison) is a reality today. It is no longer utopian. I have not been there. What is heard of in reports and papers, the secret of her success lies in her soft meliorist (= nonrigid) approach. In an address, perhaps during the Second World War, Rabindranath Tagore had made a moving appeal to America to join the Allied Powers (against Hitler). He had said that it is the universal law that the most powerful nations alone can best remove the sufferings of those that are less powerful or are powerless. Miss Kiran Bedi, perhaps unknowingly, was influenced by such a philosophy. She made the criminals, so long treated as outlaws and social pests, realize that they are men. They have the same urges and noble passions as men; they can play, act, dance and enjoy like other humans.
Our bureaucracy the ‘steel frame’ of our administration- still bears the stigma of its counterpart the Raj. It is only when Power condescends to reform and serve in the real sense, it can do so. Kiran Bedi is an instance in this case.
My third star- M.F. Hussain – is today as controversial as a soul dedicated to art as is Salman Rushdie. He has faced the worst ravages s of religious fundamentalism. His original approach to vulgarisation (= making crude and cheap) of learning through an extremely unconventional painting of the goddess brought on him the a kind of unprecedented (= not happening before) public wrath. The agitation that spread like a wild fire in some exclusive areas was promptly opposed by the votaries of art. It boldly challenged such a provincial (= narrow-minded) trend that would curb the artist his freedom of expression.
In a culture that is generous, where there is a healthy tradition to look into the significations (= real purpose) that a work of art advocates and where narrow chauvinism (= contempt of foreign things) or religiosity does not affect human freedom, an artist like M.F. Hussain would not become a hero. Because the history of art has numerous instances where such liberties of the artist are borne with patience and understanding. But in the present context the bold front presented by Mr. Hussain in the cause of art is indeed deserving of the highest honour.
