Renowned social activist was honored with the prestigious Magsaysay Award in the year 2002.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – Renowned social activist and General Secretary of Socialist Party (India), Sandeep Pandey, has decided to return the Ramon Magsaysay award conferred on him in 2002 in protest against the role of the US in the Israeli attack in Gaza.
Pandey has also decided to return the dual Masters of Science degrees earned from US universities.
Magsaysay Awards are primarily funded by Rockefeller Foundation and the category in which Pandey had received the honour was funded by Ford Foundation, both American organisations.
“Given the role of the US in blatantly supporting Israel in the current offensive against Palestinian citizens, more than 21,500 of whom are dead, and still continuing to sell arms to Israel, it has become unbearable for me to keep the award. I, therefore, am deciding to finally return the award too,” media reports quoted Pandey as saying on Tuesday.
Pandey’s organisation ‘Asha for Education’ has 12 branches and works to educate underprivileged children with the aim of shaping the socio-economic-political future of the country.
In a statement he said: “When I received the Magsaysay Award in 2002, there was a bit of controversy due to my decision to participate in a protest outside the US Embassy in Manila (the Philippines) against the impending attack on Iraq.
“The then chairman of the Magsaysay Foundation tried to stop me from participating in the protest on the pretext that it would damage the reputation of his foundation. My argument was that the award mentioned my participation in India’s peace march for global nuclear disarmament from Pokhran to Sarnath in 1999 and hence my anti-war stance is well known.”
He said he had to respect the decision to protest at the US Embassy at a peace conference in Manila University, because he was also invited to the conference. “Incidentally, the conference ended on 31 August, the same day on which the Magsaysay Awards were handed out. After the protests on September 1, a Manila newspaper challenged me in an editorial saying that if I am a principled person, I should return the award to the US Embassy before returning to India,” Pandey said.
The challenge thrown at him by the newspaper then made it easy for him to take the decision of returning the award, he said.
