The controversy over K.K. Shailaja’s nomination for the Ramon Magsaysay Award

Subject :Current Affairs

Section :Prizes

The decision of former Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja to decline an offer to be considered for the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award this year has sparked a row following allegations that the CPI(M) (Communist Party of India (Marxist)) restrained her from accepting the honour.

Why did the CPI(M) decline?

The party cited the ‘anti-communist’ credentials of the former Philippines President as the reason for declining the offer. Magsaysay was a “staunch anti-communist” who oversaw the defeat of communists (Hukbalahap) in Philippines in the 1950s, leaders of the Left said. “…this award is in the name of Ramon Magsaysay who has a history of brutal oppression of the communists in the Philippines,” said CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury to news agency PTI.

Who was Ramon Magsaysay?

Born in 1907, Ramon Magsaysay served as the seventh President of the Philippines from December 1953 to March 1957 before he was killed in a plane crash on Mount Manunggal in Cebu island.
As President, Magsaysay led several agrarian, military and administrative His three-year tenure is often cited as the ‘golden years’ of the Philippines.

What is the Ramon Magsaysay Award?

Following the death of President Ramon Magsaysay in 1957, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) established the Ramon Magsaysay Awards in the President’s honour in agreement with the Philippines government.
Later, the Fund set up the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, a non-profit organisation to manage Asia’s biggest honour that recognises selfless work transforming lives. Regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize, the award was initially given for contributions to government service, public service, community leadership, journalism, literature and creative communication arts, and peace and international understanding. The category of ‘emergent leadership’ was added later.
From India, 58 have bagged the international honour. Some of the past awardees include Mother Teresa, Satyajit Ray, VergheseKurien, Arvind Kejriwal, Mahasweta Devi and Aruna Roy.

What about the campaign against the communist rebellion?

The Hukbalahap was a communist-led, peasant-based movement with its roots in the pre-colonial era of political, economic and social inequalities. It was founded in the 1940s to fight the Japanese Army that had invaded the Philippines. Backed by U.S. forces, the Philippines government disarmed the rebels and arrested their leaders.
Magsaysay launched the Economic Development Corps (EDCOR) project to establish resettlement colonies for the Huks, provided ‘cash for guns’ to facilitate their return to mainstream society and pushed for a land reform law. Later as President, Ramon Magsaysay led a massive anti-Huks campaign ‘Operation Thunder-Lightning’ in 1954 with the help of a reorganised military and intelligence.