A controversy over the ‘joint’ decision of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (M), to decline the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award nomination for former Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja has brought into focus the prize and the former Philippines President in whose name the award was instituted in 1957.
Though the CPI(M) has cited the ‘anti-communist’ stance of Ramon Magsaysay in his political career to justify its decision, the party has come under strong criticism for rejecting the prestigious award that has exponentially grown in stature since its inception six decades ago. Regarded as the Asian equivalent of the Nobel, the Ramon Magsaysay Award has over the years established its independent legacy, with the late President in whose name the award was instituted shifting to the background.
Tracing the history
Born in 1907, Ramon Magsaysay quit his job at a bus company to join the Philippine Army when Japan invaded the islands during Second World War. Magsaysay led guerrilla forces against the Japanese. The U.S. took note of his leadership and appointed him as the military governor of his home province, which was also the start of his political journey. Ramon Magsaysay went on to become the seventh President of the Philippines.
During his presidency from 1953 to 1957, Magsaysay enjoyed widespread public support for spearheading military, administrative and agrarian reforms. Political scientist Jose Veloso Abueva, who is also Magsaysay’s political biographer, refers to him as ‘the people’s president’. “…He [Magsaysay] was their man, their leader and hero like no other president ever was before him... The images that came across sharply in the media were those of a man who would take off his shoes and walk in the mud with the farmers, eat with his hands, leap over ditches. And from the time he became Secretary of National Defence up to his tenure as President, he was portrayed as a no-nonsense reformer who cleaned up the military and the bureaucracy,” he says.
During his presidency, Magsaysay led a campaign against the Hukbalahap or Huks, a communist-led and peasant-based rebellion, with the assistance of the U.S. The Philippines formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation in 1954 to prevent communism from gaining ground.
Ramon Magsaysay was favoured to win the next presidential election, but the 49-year-old was killed in a plane crash on Mount Manunggal in Cebu island on March 17, 1957.
The award
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), a private family foundation with its headquarters in New York, established a non-profit organisation ‘the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF)’ in 1957, which instituted the award to recognise persons and organisations in Asia who have “helped others generously without anticipating public recognition”, regardless of race, creed, sex, or nationality”.
On August 31, 1958, the first Ramon Magsaysay Award was given to five individuals and a Philippine-based organisation to commemorate the birth anniversary of Magsaysay. Since then, a select few Asian personalities and institutions are annually recognised for their transformative social work. More than 300 people and 25 organisations from 22 countries have been awarded so far. While a majority of awardees have been from Asia, some others have been honoured for their work in Asia.
Initially, the award was given in five categories — government service, public service, community leadership, journalism, literature and creative communication arts, and peace and international understanding. A new category to honour young Asian leaders was added in 2000. It is funded by a grant by the U.S.-based Ford Foundation. In 2009, the Foundation discontinued the award in fixed categories, except for emergent leadership.
In 2022, four people that have won the award are psychiatrist Sotheara Chhim (Cambodia), paediatrician Bernadette Madrid (Philippines), activist-filmmaker Gary Bencheghib (Indonesia) and ophthalmologist Tadashi Hattori (Vietnam).
Ms. Shailaja would have become the first woman recipient from Kerala had she accepted the nomination.
Freedom fighter Vinoba Bhave was the first Indian to receive the award.
