Ruth Manorama, an Indian activist who has championed the cause of dalit women, has been awarded the 2006 Right Livelihood Award, better known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, along with former Vietnam war whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, anti-corruption campaigner and pioneer of the World Social Forum, Chico Whitaker Ferreira and a renowned poetry festival in Medellín, Colombia.

The awards that honour pioneers of justice, truth and efforts to build peace in North America, South America and Asia were announced in Stockholm, Sweden, on September 28.

“Ruth Manorama is the Indian subcontinent’s most effective organiser of and advocate for dalit women belonging to the ‘scheduled castes’, sometimes also called ‘untouchables’,” said Jakob von Uexkull, founder of the awards, during a ceremony at the Swedish foreign ministry’s press room. “The jury honours Manorama, a dalit herself, ‘for her commitment over decades to achieving equality for dalit women, building effective and committed women’s organisations and working for their rights at national and international levels’,” von Uexkull said.

The Right Livelihood Awards, presented annually in the Swedish parliament, were introduced “to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today”. Von Uexkull, a Swedish-German professional philatelist, sold his business to provide the original funding for the awards instituted by him in 1980 to recognise work he believed was ignored by the high-visibility Nobel Prizes.

Reacting to the announcement, Manorama said the prize would “help her build greater international awareness about their (dalits) deplorable conditions and dehumanising situation”. “Dalit women are by all means the poorest among the poorest, the lowest among the lowest of castes. The world needs to see the gravity of their problems and intensify the work for these women’s cause,” she said.

Dalit women in India, constituting half of the approximately 200 million dalit population, and 16.3% of the total Indian female population, not only suffer oppression as a result of class and caste, but also from gender inequalities resulting from a patriarchal system. “These injustices really make me want to work for their rights and freedom,” said Manorama who is involved in several regional and international rights campaigns.

In giving the prize to Manorama, the award committee took into account her work to achieve equality for dalit women in India. “I think this award will hopefully inspire other young dalit women to say ‘look what we can do’,” said von Uexkull.

Manorama is the 11th Indian to receive this prestigious award since its inception in 1980. Other Indian laureates include Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (1991), Baba Amte of the Chipko Movement (1987) and Swami Agnivesh, the most recent Indian winner, in 2004.

Ruth Manorama shares the 2006 award with Daniel Ellsberg, a former US defence department official who leaked secret documents about the Vietnam war. Ellsberg became famous for his release of the so-called ‘Pentagon Papers’ in 1971, which indicated the US had deceived the public about whether the Vietnam war could be won and the extent of casualties.

The committee also cited the Festival Internacional de Poesia de Medellín for promoting peace in what it called one of the most violent cities in the world. The poetry festival was started in the early-1990s, providing a safe haven in the midst of heavy fighting between criminal groups in the city.

Chico Whitaker Ferreira of Brazil, an anti-corruption campaigner and pioneer of the World Social Forum was declared an honorary winner “for a lifetime’s dedicated work for social justice that has strengthened democracy in Brazil and helped give birth to the World Social Forum, WSF, showing that ‘another world is possible’”.

The three recipients were elected from among a total of 73 nominated candidates from 40 countries. “The recipients demonstrate how individual courage, even in the face of powerful interests and repression, can bring about remarkable changes,” von Uexkull declared. “They are all representatives of personal courage.”

Manorama and her co-laureates will be awarded a diploma and their share of the 2 million Swedish kronor (US$ 275,000) prize on December 6, 2006.
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Source: The Hindu, September 29, 2006