Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Saturday the government would confer Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award, on BJP stalwart and former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani.

“I am very happy to share that Shri L K Advani ji will be conferred the Bharat Ratna. I also spoke to him and congratulated him on being conferred this honour. One of the most respected statesmen of our times, his contribution to the development of India is monumental,” Modi said in a post on social media platform X.

“His is a life that started from working at the grassroots to serving the nation as our deputy Prime Minister. He distinguished himself as our Home Minister and I&B minister as well. His Parliamentary interventions have always been exemplary, full of rich insights,” the Prime Minister said.

The decision comes days after the award of Bharat Ratna posthumously to socialist leader and former Chief Minister of Bihar Karpoori Thakur, and the consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya on January 22.

The journey of the two Bharat Ratna awardees — Karpoori Thakur and LK Advani — highlights the two pillars of the BJP’s political discourse these days – social justice and Hindutva.

Advani was the BJP President when the party endorsed the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in its Palampur resolution in 1989, and was also the leader who set off the Ram temple Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya in September 1990.

Karpoori Thakur was the first leader in north India to offer reservations to both OBCs and the Extremely Backward Class in 1978. It was with the support of the Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor, that he became the Deputy Chief Minister and also the Chief Minister of Bihar.

Significantly, the two awards were announced one after the other. While social justice, the Opposition’s poll plank, was the reigning theme when Bharat Ratna was announced for Karpoori Thakur, Janta Dal (U) leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the architect of the caste survey in the state, crossed over to the NDA within a few days. The conferring of the Bharat Ratna on Advani, the politician who brought Hindutva to the centre of Indian politics, is tantamount to state recognition of the centrality of Hindutva and the Ram temple movement.

The Bharat Ratna for Advani also marks a moment of closure for the veteran leader. With Prime Minister Modi seen as announcing the honour for his mentor, the message being conveyed to the electorate is that the party operates like a unit, recognising its senior leaders who are in the twilight of their political lives.

The office of LK Advani sent a statement by the veteran leader, thanking both President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Modi for conferring him the honour. “With utmost humility and gratitude, I accept the Bharat Ratna that has been conferred on me today. It is not only an honour for me as a person, but also for the ideals and principles that I strove to serve throughout my life to the best of my ability,” the statement said.

Advani recalled joining the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh at 14, and said he always thought of serving his country with dedication, and considered his life as not his but belonging to the nation. He recalled Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and also his late wife Kamla.

From an organisation man, he rose to become the Minister of Information and Broadcasting in 1977 in the Janata Party government born out of opposition unity against the Congress. After the drubbing the BJP received at the hands of the Congress in 1984, Advani as party president aligned the BJP with the Ram temple movement, first through the 1989 Palampur resolution of the party and then through his 1990 Rath Yatra. The new Hindutva icon, who had been in the Rajya Sabha since 1970, now became a mass leader, and began to win Lok Sabha elections from Delhi and then Gandhinagar from 1989 onwards.

The rath yatra, however, also pushed him into the political wilderness after the Babri mosque demolition, as “secular” parties laid the blame on him. He willingly settled to work hand-in-hand with consensus-builder Vajpayee, who was the Prime Minister from 1998 to 2004. In 2005, Advani had to resign as BJP president when he called Jinnah “secular” in Pakistan. This was seen by critics as an attempt at projecting a moderate image gone terribly wrong. In 2009, the BJP lost miserably with Advani, now trying to be a coalition builder, as the PM candidate. The party got just 116 seats in the Lok Sabha, while the Congress won 206.

Advani did not get another shot at power. In 2013, when Narendra Modi was declared the central campaign coordinator of the BJP in Goa, Advani resigned from all party posts in a huff. His terms with Modi, whom he had once mentored and who was present with him when his Ram Rath Yatra began from Somnath in 1990, seemed to have soured. The party’s Parliamentary Board rejected his resignation, the then BJP chief Rajnath Singh said Advani would continue to guide the party, and the patriarch withdrew his resignation letter.

In August, 2014, Advani, still an MP, lost his place in the BJP Parliamentary Board, along with veteran leader Murli Manohar Joshi. In June 2015, Advani said Emergency could not be ruled out “as forces that can crush democracy have become stronger”, making his one-time protege and the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley say at an event, without naming Advani, that Emergency was no longer possible

The BJP Margdarshak Mandal, in which Advani had been placed, never met, and he was also not fielded in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, marking the end of his political career.