Bengaluru: Bezwada Wilson, a human rights activist and a campaigner for eradication of manual scavenging in India, was among two Indians chosen for the Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2016.
The other Indian, Carnatic singer Thodur Madabusi Krishna from Chennai was also selected for his “forceful commitment as artist and advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions, breaking barriers of caste and class to unleash what music has to offer not just for some but for all.”
Apart from the two Indians, four others have also been selected for the award — Conchita Carpio Morales of the Philippines, Dompet Dhuafa of Indonesia, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers and ‘Vientiane Rescue’ of Laos.
The Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award established in memory of the former president of the Philippines Ramon Magsaysay and his values and example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. The prize was established in April 1957.
Bezwada Wilson was named for the award for “asserting the inalienable right to a life of human dignity.”
Born in a dalit family and a community of manual scavengers in the Kolar Gold Fields, a town in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, the Magsaysay award winner has seen his own parents clean toilets and carry human excreta.
Frustrated by it, Wilson decided to breakaway from this age-old traditional work and work against it.
Fifty-year-old Wilson began his fight to end manual scavenging in 1986, after his graduation in Political Science, and his involvements in community service and related youth programs.
Wilson is the national convener of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), a nationwide movement founded in 1994 to end manual scavenging and help those engaged in it to find dignified work in the country.
Despite the Indian government banning manual scavenging through an Act 1993, the practice of manual scavenging still continues in many parts of the country.
“A hereditary occupation, manual scavenging involves 180,000 dalit households cleaning the 790,000 public and private dry latrines across India; 98 per cent of scavengers are meagerly paid women and girls. While the Constitution and other laws prohibit dry latrines and the employment of manual scavengers, these have not been strictly enforced since government itself is the biggest violator,” the Magsaysay Award citation said.
It also noted that, “In electing Bezwada Wilson to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his moral energy and prodigious skill in leading a grassroots movement to eradicate the degrading servitude of manual scavenging in India, reclaiming for the dalits the human dignity that is their natural birthright.”
The SKA is run by a board, and its programs are implemented by a national core team working alongside a dedicated group of state conveners, organizers and community resource persons.
The Magsaysay Award winners will each receive a certificate, a medallion and a cash prize at a function to be held next month at Manila in the Philippines.
Among the other Indians who have received the award in the past are Mother Teresa, Jayaprakash Narayan, Satyajit Ray, Kiran Bedi, P. Sainath and current Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.