Father of the Nation and candidate to Presidential Election

Names – Titles and Honours !! – Gone are the times when they were so highly reverred and only those who were exceptional were given one.  In today’s World, there is fair sprinkling of ‘Colonel, General, Fearless’ and more – when they have never gone anyway closer to any battle field.  Read in a report that a thug against whom criminal cases were pending was roaming in a car with board ‘patron and provider of justice’ !! 

Mahatma is a Sanskrit word for ‘Great Soul’ – popularized in  theosophical literature in the late 19th century when Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, one of the founders of the Theosophical Society, claimed that her teachers were adepts or Mahatmas who reside in Asia.  Mahatma commonly refers to Gandhi is too well known.   Gandhi is ‘Father of the Nation’ – but who gave him this title and when it was conferred ?  Times of India reports of a 10 year old girl stumping PMO with this poser !!

It is reported that Aishwarya Parashar,a Class 6 student, from Lucknow,  made a Right to Information (RTI) query to PMO Officials -  on when and by what orders was the title of Father of the Nation conferred on Mahatma Gandhi.  She is quoted as stating that the term  Father of the Nation had always somehow excited and interested her after she read it in her social studies text book.

As she could get no definitive answers, she made a RTI query seeking  a photocopy of the government order (GO) that conferred the famous title of Father of Nation on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.The PMO replied that they had no such record whatsoever and directed the query to the ministry of home affairs (MHA),which then referred the case to the National Archives of India (NAI).  The NAI's Assistant Director and central Public Information Officer Jayprabha Ravindran also had no answers. He responded with an invite to Aishwarya asking her to visit the Archives to find for herself if there were any such relevant papers..  TOI quoting History states that  the title of Father of the Nation was given to the Mahatma by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose during his address on Singapore Radio on July 6,1944.

On a distinctly different note, the race to 16^th President of India to be elected in July 2012 is hottening up.  In these days, it is more of a person who would find acceptance of the Opposition parties also – and not directly the person who should be !  There was talk of Anna Hazare, Narayana Murthi and more including Pranab Mukherjee – sometimes some are suggested to eliminate them from the race to other posts.  Now here come the dark horse – you may not have thought of  - it is Satyanarayan Gangaram Panchal, more famously known as Sam Pitroda !!

Widely considered to be responsible for India’s communication revolution, Pitroda was at the reckoning during the period of Rajiv Gandhi.  His lineage is of Gujarat but was born in Orissa.   The debacle in the recent assembly polls has considerably weakened the Congress and they sure would look for a candidate with acceptance.  There are other contenders including vice-president Hamid Ansari, Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and statesman Dr Karan Singh.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.