JOIN USBuddhadeb not the first, these leaders and individuals also declined Padma awards
Former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is not the first Marxist leader to decline a national honour. Party's ideologue and former General Secretary late EMS Namboodirpad was the first among the CPI(M) leaders to decline a Padma Award.
The CPI(M) leaders, as a policy, do not accept awards from the State. "Com. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who was nominated for the Padma Bhushan award has declined to accept it. The CPI(M) policy has been consistent in declining such awards from the State. Our work is for the people not for awards. Com EMS who was earlier offered an award had declined it," the CPI(M) said in a statement on Tuesday night.
Bhattacharjee separately said, "I don't know anything about Padma Bhushan Award, nobody told me anything about this. If I have been awarded Padma Bhushan then I am rejecting it."
EMS was chosen for Padma Vibhushan award along with BJP's AB Vajpayee in 1992 by the then Congress government led by PV Narasimha Rao. While Vajpayee received the award, the Marxist veteran declined it.
EMS was not alone in refusing to accept the Padma Vibhushan. There were at least two more people who declined the second-highest civilian award – legendary bureaucrat PN Haksar who felt that "accepting an award for work done somehow causes an inexplicable discomfort to me" and Swami Ranganathananda as it was conferred to him as an individual and not to the Ramakrishna Mission.
Former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal returned Padma Vibhushan in 2020 in support of the farmers' protests while the family of politician Lakshmi Chand Jain refused to accept the posthumous honour as he was against accepting state honours.
When it comes to Padma Bhushan, 12 people or families refused to accept it while seven returned the honours in protest. Historian Romila Thapar declined twice while civil servant K Subrahmanyam also declined the award as he believed that bureaucrats and journalists should not accept any award from the government because they are more liable to be favoured.
Former Chief Justice of India JS Verma's family refused Padma Bhushan in 2014 after his death saying that he himself would not have accepted the honour. Kannada literary doyen K Shivaram Karanth returned his 1968 Padma Bhushan to protest against the Emergency declared 1975.
Khushwant Singh returned Padma Bhushan in protest against Operation Blue Star. However, in 2007 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.
Around 18 people, including Bollywood screenwriter Salim Khan and writer Geeta Mehta, declined Padma Shri while ten returned the awards. Those who returned the awards include poets Kaifi Azmi and Jayanta Mahapatra.
Azmi returned the award in protest against then Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Vir Bahadur Singh saying that those speaking Urdu as a second language should be made to sit on a donkey and paraded. Mahapatra returned the honour in protest against "growing intolerance" in the country.
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