The 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

RESPONSE of Aruna Roy

Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
Manila, Philippines

It is a great honor to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Though I have been singled out to receive the award, it in fact belongs to the many women and men with whom I have had the good fortune to share struggles and emerging visions for a better world. No individual, however, endowed can bring about social change on their own. Community work is a collective exercise, and the greatest potential and challenge of the human condition is to work together to realize dreams far beyond the barriers of individual limitations. It is my conviction that this is true for the work we do, the ideas we generate, as well as the leadership we create.

One of the colossal tragedies that we face today is that in a world of plenty, we still have countless people who live in conditions of abject poverty and deprivation. Can we create conditions where our fellow citizens have an equal opportunity to contribute not just their labor, but also their knowledge, understanding and intelligent perception of change? Can we effectively challenge the established norms that limit the contribution of human beings because of hierarchies of exclusion? Are we willing to critically examine our own roles in perpetuating systems of exploitation through our actions and our silences? Do we not have equal rights to benefit from the common heritage of our planet? Can we work out the modes that will allow us to move towards an order based on the principles of justice and equality? Who will do so? How will we do it?

I do not think any of us doubt the need to increase our levels of participation and involvement in issues of common interest. The universal attraction of democratic principles is that sovereignty rests with the people. But democracy is meaningful only when its specifics are worked out.

The principles of democracy are universal. But for ordinary people, it is the practice of democracy that defines the principles. The socio-political circumstances of Asian countries like India, provide the opportunity to make democracy a vehicle of change, in which the collective wisdom of people is given the sanctity it deserves. Democratic struggle becomes both an end and a means to a more participatory form of governance. It is in this attempt to change from subjects to being the actual masters, that the campaign for the people’s right to information took root in rural Rajasthan. Their collective understanding and contribution has changed the perspective of an academic and esoteric issue into a potent tool and principle of living.

It has been a process that has illustrated the potential of relatively small groups of people working together to wage an ethical struggle against far more powerful adversaries.

I feel honored most of all because I see this award as a recognition of those processes. The struggle in Rajasthan has not only drawn strength from community participation, but also from the understanding that communities acting together to provide leadership, have greater resilience, energy and creativity than any individual.

I come here today to accept this award, on behalf of the organizations I work with in Rajasthan and the many others in India who have energized this ongoing struggle. The cash prize will go to a Trust recently set up to support individuals and organizations engaged in similar democratic struggles.

I would like to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation for providing a platform to share our perceptions. I also take the opportunity to urge the Foundation to include the eligibility of collectives and organizations in the category of Community Leadership. For it is to the collectives of ordinary people, the issues and processes they have fought for, and the greatness of their human spirit that this recognition truly belongs.

Thank you.