South India’s leading music showman and activist TM Krishna and Bezwada Wilson, who has been campaigning for the abolition of manual scavenging system have been selected for this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s premier international honour.
Krishna, the 40-year-old Carnatic musician from Chennai has been honoured with the Magsaysay Award for “social inclusiveness in culture”. Krishna is the fourth Chennaite to be honoured with this award. The others from Chennai who have been awarded the Magsaysay Prize in the past are Dr V Shanta (oncologist), TN Seshan (former chief election commissioner), MS Swaminathan (agricultural scientist).
Krishna, a versatile singer and showman, is known for his anti-establishment stance on all issues, whether it be against Sangh Parivar or the Hindutwa forces. last year he sprang a sensation with his declaration that he would not participate in the annul music and dance festival in Chennai and would perform only for propagating music among the less privileged in the society.
The citation by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation too underlines this aspect of Krishna for selecting him for this year’s award. “He saw that his was a caste-dominated art that fostered an unjust, hierarchic order by effectively excluding the lower classes from sharing in a vital part of India’s cultural legacy. He questioned the politics of art; widened his knowledge about the art of the Dalits and non-Brahmin communities and declared he would no longer sing in ticketed events at a famous annual music festival in Chennai to protest the lack of inclusiveness. Recognising that dismantling artistic hierarchies can be a way of changing India’s divisive society, Krishna devoted himself to democratising the art as an independent artist, writer, speaker and activist”.
Bezwada Wilson, the fifty-year-old national convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan too has been awarded the Magsaysay Award for 2016. He was selected for asserting the inalienable right to a life of human dignity. Bezwada played a crucial role in ensuring the liberation of 3,00,000 manual scavengers from the 6,00,000 manual scavengers in India, said the citation of the RMAF.
“A hereditary occupation, manual scavenging involves 180,000 dalit households cleaning the 790,000 public and private dry latrines across India; 98 percent 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
Wilson launched a crusade against manual scavenging and formed Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA). SKA vigorously conducted district-level meetings to raise awareness about scavenging, the caste system, and the 1993 Prohibition Act, and trained local leaders and volunteers for the movement. In 2004-2005, it undertook a mass latrine demolition drive across the state of Andhra Pradesh; exposed the occupational violence faced by female scavengers; and met with officials to demand the demolition of dry latrines and the provision of alternative occupations for scavengers. In 2010, SKA led an India-wide march for the total eradication of scavenging, and again in 2015 undertook a 125-day bus journey across 30 states to mobilize the public against manual scavenging. The movement has since made significant progress”, said the citation.
The awardees will be presented with a citation, and a medallion with an embossed image of Ramon Magsaysay on August 31, the birth anniversary of the former president at Manila.