Swarajya Awards For 2016: And The Winners Are...

Swarajya Awards for 2016, presented in association with India Foundation and Indic Academy, were announced Saturday (5 November 2016) at India Ideas Conclave in Goa. The aim of the awards is to recognise the salient contribution of different individuals in the fields of economics, politics, social work and culture.

Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda - Winner of the Dr S P Mukherjee Award For Politics

Good governance lies at the intersection of constructive ideas and indefatigable action. The labour of a politician, while being extremely taxing in a democracy like India, is unlikely to lead to a positive change if not guided by the principle of public interest. And a novel idea in a political leader’s mind is of no value unless it takes the form of an activity on the ground. Sri Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda is one such leader who complements his ideas of good governance with relentless action.

Sri Panda’s popularity is not limited to his parliamentary constituency or state, but goes beyond them. The young citizens of India are especially inspired by the kind of politics he represents and practises. Sri Panda’s efforts to combat malnutrition, his solutions to problems of the education and economic sector, and his views on topics of national concern are followed with keen intent by the youth of India.

The B R Shenoy Award is in honour of India’s bravest free market economist who dared to challenge Nehruvian socialism. Eminent journalist T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan, the second recipient of this award, is also someone who has dared to tilt at the windmills of socialism when it was not fashionable to do so.

TCA’s razor-sharp mind and deep contacts in the bureaucracy have made him one of India’s most insightful writers on the political economy, showing how even the most well-meaning of programmes get hijacked by bureaucrats and vested interests. His writing has a light touch that makes economics easy for lay persons as well. He was the first to use the term TamBrahm in the Times of India and popularise it.

Temsutula Imsong is blazing a trail in the Swachh Bharat campaign and has single-handedly turned around abhorrent conditions in one of Varanasi’s famous riverside ghats – the Prabhu Ghat.

She saw the ghats were strewn with garbage and excrement, and the stench emanating from them was so overbearing that she and a friend who was accompanying her, had to hold their breath in disgust.

How could a place of such great spiritual significance be treated in so shabby a manner?

Mission Prabhu Ghat was a grand success. Ms Imsong’s team had roped in locals, tourists, volunteers and even students to make this possible.

If Prabhu Ghat can be cleaned up in three days why can’t the other slimy spots in and around Varanasi?

When Ms Imsong first began organising volunteers to clean up the ghats, she had been living in Varanasi for only a few months. Born in the Mokokchung village of Nagaland, she imbibed the values of volunteer initiative and cleanliness from the voluntary clean-up drive organised in her village every month.

Ms Imsong’s extraordinary efforts in mobilising and sustaining a team of volunteers to clean up a part of the city she resides in, embodies the true spirit of the Swachh Bharat campaign.

Jaya Jaitly is provocateur of a silent revolution in the traditional arts and crafts of India. She has inspired the kaarigars who in turn have inspired her, tirelessly, for decades. Through Dastakaari Haat Samiti, she has created viable platforms for artisans, craftsmen, and weavers, echoing the need to build a market for their work and saving the dying arts.

Having worked with three generations of craftsmen, she has encouraged a chain of confidence-driven collaborations between them, generating in the process, several opportunities for the makers of beautiful arts. In her journey as a cultural impresario, she has worked constantly, opening knots of gender, caste and other identities compartmentalising artisans, their traditional skills and ideas.

More pictures from the event: