Knighthoods, Damehoods et al: British badges of honour

It is a ritual that I and most London-based journalists reporting for news organisations in Asia go through twice a year: trawling through the list of people named for Britain’s civilian awards published on December 31 and on Queen Elizabeth’s official birthday in June. There was a time when few individuals from the Asian community would be awarded knighthood, damehood, OBE, CBE or MBE, but the Asian presence in the lists has grown exponentially in the last two decades, reflecting success in various fields.

Together, the lists name nearly 3,000 people every year, who receive their awards from the Queen and other members of the royal family. The latest New Year Honours List includes nearly 100 individuals from the community, including a KBE (Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for Ajay Kumar Kakkar, professor of surgery at University College London. And the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2021 named Lancashire-based educationist Hamid Patel for the title of Knight Bachelor.

Britain’s honours system and titles are among the oldest and most known across the globe, often reflected in popular culture, including in the political sitcom Yes Minister and Shakespeare’s Othello (“I have done the state some service, and they know’t” — Act V, Scene II). There are broadly nine Orders under which the honours are bestowed; the oldest being the Most Noble Order of the Garter founded in 1348.

Four of the nine Orders are in the personal gift of the Queen, while others are nominated through a closely-monitored system by the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. The largest number of individuals figures in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (established 1917) with titles such as CBE (Commander), OBE (Officer) and MBE (Member). Several elites in former colonies were bestowed such awards, while some honours became obsolete during the process of de-colonisation, such as the Order of the Star of India, the Order of the Indian Empire and the Order of St Patrick, which was once conferred on Irish peers by the British monarch.

Britain has changed considerably since the time the Orders were established. The Empire is long gone, and so is its memory for most of the young generation that has grown in a multicultural Britain with all its opportunities and challenges. The honours system continues to evoke respect in the majority of the British public, particularly for the achievements of the ordinary honorees in various fields, though a parliamentary committee has expressed concern that less than half of the public feel that it is ‘open and fair to all’.

Despite efforts to change this perception, celebrities and sports stars are viewed as more likely to receive honours than people with years of service to their local communities. There is also still a belief that honours are used to thank donors to political parties or received automatically at senior levels of the civil service, it notes.

The system aims to celebrate the people who go above and beyond to change the world around them for the better; it particularly seeks to recognise those who selflessly volunteer their time and efforts; gain the respect of peers; display moral and physical courage; or show real innovation and entrepreneurship.

A large number of medical professionals dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic were honoured in recent lists. The joy of being named for one of the awards is apparent on social media and the news soon after the lists are published.

For example, it has been a unique journey for Nottinghamshire-based educationist Asha Khemka, from the small town of Sitamarhi in 
Bihar to Buckingham Palace, to receive the 
honour of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the female equivalent of knighthood. She arrived in Britain with her family in 1978 without any English language skills and went on to change the lives of thousands of British students.

She is the second woman of Indian origin to be awarded the top honour for women since the Order was instituted (the first was 
Maharani Lakshmi Devi of Dhar in 1931). Khemka says: “To receive such recognition is deeply humbling. This is a shared honour, shared with everyone who I have worked with over the years. My passion for Further Education is impossible to describe and grows more so every day. I am immensely proud to be part of this amazing sector.”

Honouring politicians

If such achievement is hailed widely, there is also outrage at politicians being honoured. The latest example is former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been named by the Queen for the title of Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the New Year Honours List 2022. Nearly 700,000 people signed a petition calling for his knighthood to be removed. Recalling Blair’s role in the Iraq conflict, actor Angus Scott, who launched the petition, told BBC: “Tony Blair is the least deserving person of any public honour, particularly anything awarded by Her Majesty the Queen. I thought it (the petition) might pick up a few hundred signatures, but obviously it taps into a deep feeling that’s pretty obvious around the country. The honours system itself — people are starting to question if it’s appropriate. But if I get enough signatures on the petition, it will give a clear message that 
this country is a democracy and that the establishment has to start listening to people. He’s been out of office for more than 14 years, 
but an awful lot of people have very strong feelings about Tony Blair’s record, and they have to be heeded.”

Blair’s credentials for the honour are hotly debated, but it adds another episode to public ennui against the political establishment. Every prime minister exiting Downing Street can also nominate MPs and other associates for such honours, which is not part of the annual two lists. Besides, a committee of the House of Commons detailed several instances of financial considerations influencing honours, expressing concern at the use of honours as the “lubricant of the state”.

In the 1920s, Maundy Gregory, a 
fixer, encouraged by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, systematically sold honours to raise money for political purposes, the committee noted, adding that the 1922 Birthday List contained a barony for Joseph Robinson, a convicted fraudster who had paid Gregory £30,000 
for the privilege. The King was concerned enough to write to Lloyd George to ask him to treat honours with more care, criticising the “questionable circumstances” in which awards had been granted.

The concerns have prompted several reviews and changes to the honours system by MPs and others over the years. In 2011, the British 
Empire Medal (BEM) was reintroduced after it was discontinued by Prime Minister John 
Major in 1993. One of the changes recommended by the Public Administration Select Committee is to discontinue the Order of the British Empire and launch a new Order of British Excellence keeping with the changes in history and modern impulses.