Wilson, Krishna win Magsaysay award

MANILA: Two Indians -- Carnatic singer T M Krishna and prolific campaigner for eradication of manual scavenging Bezwada Wilson -- were on Wednesday chosen for the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2016 along with four others.

Wilson, the national convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), has been named as an awardee for “asserting the inalienable right to a life of human dignity” while Krishna was chosen for the award under the ‘Emergent Leadership’ category for bringing “social inclusiveness in culture”.

Four others who have have been selected for the award are -Conchita Carpio-Morales of the Philippines, Dompet Dhuafa of Indonesia, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers and ‘Vientiane Rescue’ of Laos.

Forty-year-old Krishna has been hailed in the citation as “showing that music can indeed be a deeply transformative force in personal lives and society itself ”. “In electing Thodur Madabusi Krishna to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognises 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,” the citation said.

The other Indian award recipient, 50-year-old Wilson, was born into a Dalit family involved in manual scavenging in Kolar Gold Fields township in Karnataka.

“In electing Bezwada Wilson to receive the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognises 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 citation said.