Former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur to be awarded Bharat Ratna posthumously

Subject :Polity

Section: Msc

Context:

President Droupadi Murmu has conferred the Bharat Ratna posthumously to two-time Bihar chief minister and socialist icon Karpoori Thakur

More on news:

The announcement to honor Karpoori Thakur with India’s highest civilian award comes a day before his 100th birth anniversary.

About Karpoori Thakur:

Thakur served as the chief minister of Bihar from December 1970 to June 1971 and from December 1977 to April 1979.
Thakur belonged to the Nai (barber) community that is listed as an Extremely Backward Class (EBC) among the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the state and was from Pitaunjhia (now known as Karpoori Gram) a Rajput-dominated village in the Samastipur district.
He is often remembered as the “voice of the oppressed and the downtrodden”.
Also called ‘jannayak’, he is widely considered as the pioneer of OBC and EBC reservations in the country.

About his political career:

He made his debut as a legislator when he won the 1952 elections and remained one till his last Assembly election in 1985.
Thereafter he faced an electoral loss when he contested from Samastipur in the 1984 Lok Sabha polls, in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
After 1980, Karpoori was dubbed an EBC leader, a tag that he was not able to shed till the end of his life.
His reservation policy drew a lot of criticism from the public.
In 1988, 42 upper caste people were killed by Naxalites in the Dalelchak Bhagoda village and Thakur

About layered reservation regime:

As the CM in 1978, he implemented a layered reservation regime.
The quota system which is an unparalleled one at that time provided a 26% reservation model in which
- OBCs got 12%,
- EBCs from among OBCs got 8%,
- women got 3%, and
- economically backward classes (EBWs) from among the upper castes got 3%.

About Bharat Ratna:

The Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India.
Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conferred in recognition of “exceptional service/performance of the highest order”, without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex.
The award was originally limited to achievements in the arts, literature, science, and public services, but the government expanded the criteria to include “any field of human endeavor” in December 2011.
The recommendations for Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister himself to the President.
No formal recommendations for this are necessary.
The number of annual awards is restricted to a maximum of three in a particular year.
The recipients receive a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a peepal leaf-shaped medallion.
There is no monetary grant associated with the award.
Bharat Ratna recipients rank seventh in the Indian order of precedence.
Till now, the award has been bestowed upon 49 individuals, including 15 who were awarded posthumously.
The original statutes did not provide for posthumous awards but were amended in January 1955 to permit them.
There is no formal provision that recipients of the Bharat Ratna should be Indian citizens.
It has been awarded to a naturalized Indian citizen i.e. Mother Teresa in 1980 and to two non-Indians i.e. Abdul Ghaffar Khan of Pakistan in 1987 and the former South African president Nelson Mandela in 1990

The Padma Awards are announced annually on the eve of Republic Day (26th January).
Instituted in the year 1954, it is one of the highest civilian honours of India.
The Award seeks to recognize achievements in all fields of activities or disciplines where an element of public service is involved.
The Awards are given in three categories:

The Awards are given in various disciplines/ fields of activities, viz.- art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc.
The Awards are conferred on the recommendations made by the Padma Awards Committee, which is constituted by the Prime Minister every year.
The awards are presented by the President of India usually in the month of March/April every year.
The award does not amount to a title and cannot be used as a suffix or prefix to the awardees’ name.
The total number of awards to be given in a year (excluding posthumous awards and to NRI/foreigners/OCIs) should not be more than 120.