Tarun Vijay, Rajya Sabha member from the Bharatiya Janata Party, has said that freedom fighter and poet ‘Mahakavi’ Subramania Bharathi “is at such a great height that even a Bharat Ratna (the country’s highest civilian award) is a small gesture before his greatness”.
His comment has come following a representation made by Bharathiyar Thinkers Forum based here. The forum had requested him to prevail upon the Centre to confer ‘Bharat Ratna’ posthumously on the freedom fighter besides issuing commemorative coins and operating an exhibition train in his honour.
Replying to the plea made by the secretary of the forum, R. Laskhminarayanan, on April 24, the MP, representing Uttarakhand in the Rajya Sabha, agreed to persuade the Union Ministry of Finance to issue a commemorative coin alone in honour of the Tamil poet. “I fully agree with you that Shri Subramaniya Bharathiyar was a great freedom fighter and a symbol of national unity. His contribution for women empowerment is immense… I will try to have the Central government to issue a coin on Subramaniya Bharathiyar,” he said.
Expressing satisfaction over the reply, Mr. Lakshminarayanan said: “We are steadfast on our view that Bharathi deserves the Bharat Ratna. Nevertheless, we are thankful to the MP for having at least agreed to take up with the Centre the long-pending demand of issuing commemorative coins.”
He recalled that the Department of Economic Affairs, under the Union Finance Ministry, had on November 26, 2013, a fortnight before the 131{+s}{+t}birth anniversary of Bharathi, rejected a similar plea on the ground that there was “no special occasion or milestone” for issuing commemorative coins.
“However, curiously, the Centre had issued a gazette notification on December 18, 2013 for minting Rs. 5 coins to commemorate Jain religious leader Acharya Tulsi’s birth centenary. Those coins were minted in April 2014 and are now in circulation… We do not understand why Bharathi should be discriminated. Our wish is that coins carrying his portrait should be circulated across the country and an exhibition train operated to educate people about Mahakavi’s contribution to Tamil literature and the freedom movement,” he added.