Dr Shivraj Patil!

Raju Korti
If ever there was an award for the most blank and expressionless face in the history of mankind, I am sure the former union home minister Shivraj Patil would win it hands down. I say that with so much assurance on the simple premise that I have not seen anyone else with a similar visage and I have seen quite a few in my professional career.
Now do not get me wrong. I have nothing but unadulterated admiration for this man. To be able to be either a minister or a Governor at any given point of time without having anything worthwhile on your CV is no mean feat. Besides, someone as pricked in conscience and probity in public life as one resigning as union home minister in the wake of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai cannot be damned and trashed just because he is born with a poker face. United States Ambassador David Mulford had described his removal after the Mumbai terror attacks as inevitable and called him "inept" and "asleep on the watch." As a patriotic Indian citizen -- whose heart bleeds at the way Devyani Khobrgagade was ill-treated and humiliated by the American Government -- one should ignore Mulford's mean remark as a bad joke.
As an administrator, Patil has decades of experience without any merit. If you think this is a crooked remark, take a cursory look at his political graph. It will kindle hopes in many people who have nothing to boast about and yet want to make a mark in public life.
As someone who has been blessed with providence, Patil missed being the country's president by just a whisker. Blame it on the Leftists who opposed him tooth and nail and (as a result) Sonia Gandhi foisting another "inept" (Pratibha) Patil on the country. So what if the nation was in a lose-lose situation?
Patil held a number of important positions in the party. I have little doubt that it was this sense of achievement that prompted him to introduce the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award in 1992. Propriety, if not merit, demanded he should have been the first recipient of that honor. But what the union government could not realize and do, the Maharashtra government has made amends with. It has decided to honor him with a Honoris Causa D. Litt in recognition of his exceptionally meritorious performance. I am told Patil is already searching frantically for the right attire to suit the occasion.
Maharashtra Government truly deserves a wide round of applause for honoring a person as worthy as Patil. When Mumbai was almost drowned in the calamitous flood of 26 July 2005, the Congress government couldn't think of anyone else except Patil to take the reins of disaster management. Forget that the man was an unmitigated disaster himself but the party knew that here was a minister who had the expertise to handle portfolios about whom he knew next to nothing.
Patil is undoubtedly a jewel in the Congress crown. It is time the party realized that his worth cannot be measured in terms of cosmetic degrees alone. He deserves the country's highest civilian honor.