Sachin for Bharat Ratna?

There has been a lot of debate of why Sachin for the Bharat Ratna. I don't agree that giving the Bharat Ratna to sports persons and film personalities is a bad thing. If people contributing to various arts is reason enough to give the Bharat Ratna, then sport persons cannot be an exception. The criteria for the award is "performance of highest order in any field of human endeavour", which is fair enough. Such human efforts serve as role models, so indirectly they do "national service" as was required by the original criteria defined for the Bharat Ratna. 

The question to ask is - does playing good cricket constitute performance of highest order? If the Congress government says yes, it is scoring a self-goal. It is an acknowledgement of the fact that they had brought the country to a situation by the early 90s where there were few things in India that were "world-class", there were hardly any role models. To excel at something as simple as playing cricket required superhuman effort. It was in such a time that people saw Sachin as a lighthouse of excellence in a sea of mediocrity. He carried the hopes and aspirations of a country. That is the reason he evokes such admiration. And that is probably the reason Dhyanchand, who is no less deserving in terms of achievement, misses out. Post-independence, we were a confident nation, full of optimism, and ready to build a new India. Playing great hockey may not have looked like national service then. Remember, we also had our best scientists before/just after Independence (CV Raman, JC Bose, Satyendranath Bose, S.Ramanujan, Homi Bhabha). But by the time Sachin played, our country had been reduced to mortaging our gold. In that context, Sachin's work stands out in the popular eye. The Bharat Ratna to Sachin is an indictment of our political class.