CPI(M) leader K K Shailaja declines the Ramon Magsaysay Award - Here's why

New Delhi: Senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader K K Shailaja refused to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award named after the late President of the Philippines. It was reportedly due to his alleged brutalities against the Communists that she declined the honour. However, in an interaction with the reporters, she said that she didn't want the award as she wasn't interested in receiving it in her individual capacity.

Speaking about the same, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the award is in the name of Ramon Magsaysay who has a history of alleged brutal oppression of Communists in the Philippines.

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As per reports, Shailaja who was the former health minister of Kerala came to this decision on the behest of her party.

"...This award is in the name of Ramon Magsaysay who has the history of brutal oppression of the communists in the Philippines. So, for all these factors together, she politely refused it saying that she will be the first politician to get it," Yechury said.

"The NGOs may not be in favour of the Communist ideology. And hence it was not right that I receive it as an individual because I was considered for something which was actually part of a collective effort. So, I decided not to accept the award. I thanked them and politely refused the award saying I was not interested in receiving it in an individual capacity," Shailaja said.

Left leaders who spoke on the issue have claimed that Magsaysay was a staunch anti-Communist who oversaw the defeat of Communists (Hukbalahap, a Communist guerrilla movement formed by the farmers of Central Luzon) in the Philippines in the 1950s.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) in 1957 established the Ramon Magsaysay Awards to honour the late President of the Philippines, who died in a plane crash in March 1957. The awards were given for contributions made by citizens of the Philippines and other Asian countries in government service, public service, international understanding, journalism and literature, and community leadership.

Indians including filmmaker Satyajit Ray and cartoonist R K Laxman, former election commissioner T N Sheshan, singer M S Subbulakshmi, scientist M S Swaminathan, former Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal are among the past awardees.

(With PTI inputs)