Aping the returning of honours.

To protest against the brutal action of April 13, 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, caused Rabindranath Tagore to return his Knighthood- he was the first person to do so. His intellectual greatness and literal majesty is reflected in the words he wrote to the Viceroy, in May of 1919, while he surrendered his Knighthood. “The time has come,” Tagore wrote to the Viceroy when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation.” He went on to say “I for my part, wish to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so called insignificance, are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings… And… ask Your Excellency, with due reference and regret, to relieve me of my title of Knighthood…”

I doubt if any of these ex-court jesters, mediocre in intellect and excellent in the art of sycophancy, who are returning - just the medals, and not the money- would site one example like Jallianwala Bagh, that is causing them to return their medals? Or at least try to write a letter that is telling the truth, but matching the grace of Gurudev's words, in their own language ??

I doubt, if all of them combined would even match Gandhiji's, who also got enthusiastic after he observed the surge of sentiment in the country, after Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's action. He too, later on returned his 'Kaiser-i-Hind' and two other medals. Deploring the action he, inter alia wrote : “the punitive measures taken by Gen Dyer, Col Frank Johnson, Col O’Brien, Mr Bosworth Smith, Rai Shri Ram Sud, Mr Malik Khan, and other officers” as being “a wanton cruelty and inhumanity, almost unparalleled in modern times. ......... I venture to return these medals…Valuable as these honours have been to me, I cannot wear them with an easy conscience…”