The 1981 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

RESPONSE of Pramod Karan Sethi

I am deeply indebted to the Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for the honor they have done me. In effect they have honored our small team of doctors and artisans and the community of my town of Jaipur without whose contributions it would have been impossible for me to do the kind of work we are doing.

For years our work went almost unnoticed because there was nothing exotic or glamorous about the simple, almost austere technology which was associated with it. It was the occasional pat on our back by some of our distinguished visitors and the unconcealed joy exhibited by the large number of our poor, rural patients which sustained our faith and enthusiasm. This prestigious award, however, has suddenly lent credibility and legitimacy to our efforts and hopefully, our research institutions and planning bodies will now be compelled to carry out some hard reappraisal of their priorities.

For too long we, in the developing countries, have looked towards the advanced nations for selecting areas of research. There is a deepseated desire on the part of our research workers to win applause in an international gathering of experts. The needs of the poor, the downtrodden and the underprivileged are constantly being overlooked. This has distorted our priorities which are leading, if anything, to a heightening of the contrast between the rich and the poor. I find the Magsaysay Award as a solitary shining example where importance is given to those efforts which work towards a more humane and just social order.

One word about the Jaipur Foot. It is not the technical virtuosity of its design features which excites me. Better designs will soon overrun it. I value it because it represents the first major departure in our thought processes and our value system. Instead of looking to the West for our inspiration, it enabled us to look to our poor peasant for his approval. It taught us the way to tap creativity, innovation and participation from our humble and underrated craftsmen. We realized, as many others doubtless already have, that education should not be confused with institutional schooling, and that creativity is not a prerogative of the elite. The lack of financial resources is not always an obstacle to useful work, and the response of the community can be startling once the members realize that your work is meaningful and relevant to them. The work on the Jaipur Foot has given us the courage to be self-reliant and to question orthodox dogma. It has taught us that the demystification of professional knowledge is a powerful tool to allow us to draw on a very large reservoir of talents which otherwise continue to lie dormant.

The Jaipur Foot, thus, is not merely a technical innovation. It represents a departure in our development strategies. The results of this strategy are already apparent in many other innovations for the disabled. The realization that an identical approach can be utilized with great effect in the entire field of rehabilitation medicine is now becoming clear to us. Other individuals and groups can refine and develop these ideas and test them in different situations. They can have the assurance that they will be watched with interest by the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation.