E-Paper
HT This Day: September 8, 1955 -- Award For P.M. Nehru
Wave after wave of joyous ovation rolled through the Durbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan as the President invested the Prime Minister with the Medal and Sanad of Bharat Ratna, the highest national award of honour, at a ceremony today.
Wave after wave of joyous ovation rolled through the Durbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan as the President invested the Prime Minister with the Medal and Sanad of Bharat Ratna, the highest national award of honour, at a ceremony today.
More than 700 guests, including Cabinet Ministers, members of Parliament, high officials and friends and relatives of the recipients of the various awards had assembled to witness the investiture, in the course of which the President honoured citizens who had distinguished themselves and served their country well in their respective walks of life.
Dr Bhagwan Das, the saintly scholar from Banaras, came to the dais, after Mr Nehru, also to be decorated with the peepal leaf of toned bronze, with the words “Bharat Ratna” embozed below a replica of the sun on its obverse.
The assembly was thrilled when the nonagenarian engineer-statesman, Mr M. Visvesvaraya, was gently conducted to the President, who presented him with the third and last Bharat Ratna award conferred at today’s investitures.
The Bharat Ratna had been awarded previously to three others -Mr C. Rajagopalachari, Dr Radhakrishnan and Dr C. V. Raman.
Mr V. K. Krishna Menon and Mr J. R. D. Tata, the eminent industrialist, were presented with the second highest national award of honour, “Padma Vibhusban.”
Mr F. C. Badhwan, former Chairman of the Railway Board, headed the list of seven recipients of Padme Bhushan. Nine others were presented with the award “Padma Shri.”
PRESIDENTS RECEPTION
The entire ceremony lasted less than half an hour, and later the President held a reception.
The official printed programme of the ceremony contained brief biographical sketches of the recipients, but the page for the Prime Minister was left blank, except for five words: “ Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister.”
The President tied a white ribbon with the medal hanging from it round the neck of the recipients of the Bharat Ratna. Other decorations were pinned.
The popular classical musician Pandit Onkar Nath Thakore displayed a characteristic sense of the occasion. Immediately after receiving the Padma Shri award, he turned towards the assembly with a happy, heart-warming smile.
In today’s roll-call of honour were two eminent citizens of Delhi, Mrs Rameshwari Nehru who received the “ Padma Bhushan award, and Dr Siddha Nath Kaul, the eye specialist, on whom was conferred the Padma Shri award.
THE ELITE
The elite who were honoured today included schemes such as Dr S. K. Chatterji (Padma Bhushan) and Mr L. N. Sahu (Padma Shri); the great healers Dr V. R. Khanolkar, Director of the Indian Cancer Research Centre, Bombay (Padma Bhushan), and Dr M. P. Mehray, the eminent ophthalmologist from U.P., (Padma Shri); the engineers Mr S. D. Khungar, General Manager, Bhakra Dem Project, and Mr A. R. Venkatachari, both of whom received the Padma Bhushan; and the scientist Prof. Thacker, Chairman of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, also a Padma Bhushan.
Three well-known women social workers-Mrs Mary Clubwala Jadhav, Mrs Zarina Currimbhoy and Mrs Rattan Shastri-figured in the list of Padma Shri recipients.
Mr Kewal Singh, Commissioner of Pondicherry, was invested with Padma Shri for his contribution to the negotiations for the peaceful merger of the former French settlements.
Mr Habib-ur-Rahman, senior architect with the Government of India, also received the Padma Shri.
Dr P. K. Parija, the educationist from Orissa, was not present to receive in person the Padma Bhushan award conferred on him. All the other 20 recipients of the various awards attended the investiture ceremony.
TRIBUTE TO NEHRU
To many it was the proudest day of their lives. To the nation too it was a proud and happy day. And as the last strains of the National Anthem blended exultantly with the mood of the occasion, one recalled the words the President used at the State dinner on July 15, two days after the Prime Minister’s return from the Soviet Union, when he said he had decided to confer the Bharat Ratna on Mr Nehru, as a concrete expression of the nation’s gratitude to the Prime Minister for his heroic endeavour in the cause of peace for mankind.”
Dr Rajendre Prasad, on that occasion, said: “ I have felt that I can do no better than conferring on him the award of Bharat Ratna which is the highest award of honour that we have. In doing so, for once I may be said to be acting unconstitutionally, as I am taking this step I on my own initiative and without any recommendation or advice from my Prime Minister; but I know that my action will be endorsed most enthusiastically not only by my Cabinet and other Ministers but by the country as a whole.”
