The 1963 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

RESPONSE of Dara N. Khurody

It is a matter of great honor and privilege for any person, howsoever gifted or great, to be qualified to receive the distinguished and internationally recognized Ramon Magsaysay Award. I am a very humble individual and never expected any such distinction in the field of Community Leadership.

A leader is no leader, unless he has a following. I, therefore, share this honor with my staff of over 8,000 strong, who have worked with me with great loyalty, sincerity and hard labor and without whose help and cooperation the Bombay Milk Scheme would not have developed to the extent it has, nor would world attention have been focused on it from all sides.

For me, this event is of special significance. After serving my country in the field of dairy development, market research and dairy education for over 38 years, I am receiving this honor from the friendly country of the Philippines on the very eve of my retirement from government service, now within about a month. In India, government servants retire at an early age of 58, to make room for others.

I shall now shortly be leaving India to take an appointment under the Dairy Society International. My new appointment will enable me to be of use to a wider area in the West Asian region in the field of dairy development and marketing matters.

I am also delighted to share the cash prize with two of my distinguished and near colleagues from Anand who are present here. We have had the pleasure of working together for over a decade in pursuit of a common cause.

During the past 18 years that I have been connected with the Bombay Milk Scheme, I have seen the good cheer it has brought to hundreds of poor homes when they started receiving regularly cheap and wholesome milk, which they could not afford before. It has minimized sickness. It has prevented pain. I have noticed gratitude on the faces of thousands of mothers when their children began to get free milk in the schools, which they could not provide by themselves.

Proper nutrition for the poorer classes is a service, I am sure, that would have occupied a high position in the heart and in the ideals of life of that great, selfless leader—Ramon Magsaysay, on whose birthday anniversary we are gathered to pay our homage.

We, Indians, believe in the non-destructibility of the soul. We believe soul is immortal. At this very moment, therefore, when this solemn ceremony is taking place, the noble soul of Ramon Magsaysay must be gladdened in the heavens to know these Awards are being given in the service of mankind.

We have a saying that we enter this world with empty hands. We leave it with nothing in them. What goes with us are our deeds, through which alone we can be remembered.

I come from an old middle class family in Central India. My father was a government servant and had a small income. Before him, his father was also a public servant. I know, therefore, what monetary handicaps can mean. I myself received my dairy education, 38 years ago, through the generosity of a dear departed distant relative.

In these circumstances, I can do no better than to inform the Trustees, now and here, that my entire share of the cash Award, namely $3,333.33, will be donated by me to start a new endowment at the Dairy Technology Institute, Aarey Milk Colony (Bombay), to perpetuate the greatness of the spirit of Ramon Magsaysay. This endowment will render help to deserving boys and girls coming from poor families, who wish to receive dairy education. I am hopeful of increasing the fund to a sizable amount, through other contributions, so that the poor and needy students can study dairying, irrespective of who they are. This would be the first endowment in India donated to helping dairy students who cannot afford such education themselves.

At this juncture, ladies and gentlemen, believe me, the greatest happiness of mine and that of my family is that we have been afforded by Providence a new opportunity for service by being granted the Magsaysay Award.

Before I end, I wish to invoke, Mr. Chairman and Trustees, your blessings, that the nucleus endowment to be newly started out of the Award bestowed upon me may grow from strength to strength, to perpetuate the spirit of Ramon Magsaysay far and wide in India.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas. Jai hind.