Ruth Manorama recently won the Alternative Nobel Prize for 2006. But wait a minute. Who is Ruth Manorama? And is there such a thing as an ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’?

Ruth Manorama is one of India’s most famous defenders of dalit women, women who belong to the scheduled castes, or what were earlier thought of as ‘untouchables’. She was chosen for the award “...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”.

Manorama is the 11th Indian to win this award. She shares the $ 275,000 prize money with Chico Whitaker of Brazil and Daniel Ellsberg of the US.

Now, everyone knows about the Nobel Prize and the famous scientists and statesmen who win it. But what is an ‘alternative’ Nobel?

The real name of this award is the Right Livelihoods Award. The name comes from a Buddhist concept (though the idea is found in many traditions) -- that everyone should earn their livelihood engaged in an occupation that does not harm other people or the environment in any way. A person’s way of making money should also show that she/he is responsible for her/his actions and is working for the betterment of the earth as a whole. People who do this struggle constantly against oppression.

The Right Livelihoods Award was founded in 1980 by Jakob von Uexkull, a professional stamp collector and member of the European parliament. He knew that the Nobel Prize was probably the highest honour that anyone could receive; it’s something the whole world looks up to. But the prize is based on science and scientific developments that are usually connected with the developed world. Most of the winners are from industrialised countries, and those who are not generally work in institutions that are built around the ideals and programmes of developed countries. Even the peace prize is seen from the viewpoint of the big industrialised countries and what they consider is good for world peace.

Von Uexkull felt that this was not good enough. In his own words, he wanted to “recognise the efforts of those who are tackling these issues more directly, coming up with practical answers to such challenges as the pollution of our air, soil and water, the danger of nuclear war, the abuse of basic human rights, the destitution and misery of the poor and the over-consumption and spiritual poverty of the wealthy”.

He asked the Nobel Prize Foundation to start a new award for people who were doing important things for the poor and for the earth; he even offered to finance the new prizes. But they refused. So he decided to start his own prize and sold off his stamp collection to make money to start the Right Livelihoods Award Foundation. The Right Livelihoods Awards are presented in the Swedish parliament (Von Uexkull is Swedish and German) one day before the Nobel prizes are given out.

To return to the winners. Ruth Manorama won this year because of her work with dalit women. In spite of there being laws against it, we know how badly India’s ‘low castes’ suffer discrimination, and how little things have changed for them. It’s even worse being a dalit woman. A dalit woman is doubly oppressed -- she is a dalit and a woman. And, she is poor (being a woman she has little access to a well-paying job). So, dalit women end up being the most marginalised of all people in India. Marginalised people may exist in large numbers, but they are excluded from decision-making and power by the fewer but more powerful dominant sections of society. Development, though done in the name of the poor and the marginalised, usually passes them by, and development projects often leave them worse off than they were before.

Ruth Manorama works with people like these, especially women, helping them find a voice.

Ruth Manorama was born in 1952. She is a dalit herself and has a Master’s degree in social work from the University of Madras. After getting her degree she began working for a slum development CSO in Chennai. Later, she set up an organisation called Women’s Voice and turned a domestic workers union into a recognised and registered trade union. She realised that marginalised people’s voices could only be heard if they had an organisation to back them. And so she became one of the founders of the National Federation of Dalit Women. Since then, Ruth Manorama’s working life has been spent building organisations, mobilising people and working to secure the rights of dalit women. She has worked on a range of other issues too, from ensuring that slum-dwellers have a roof over their heads, to working with unorganised labour. While studying black women in the US she was struck by the similarities between marginalised women everywhere. She now works at the international level on gender issues, and often speaks at UN conferences.

The Right Livelihoods Awards are usually given to four people (or organisations) each year. This year, along with Ruth Manorama, the other winners were Brazilian Chico Whitaker Ferreira, one of the founders of the World Social Forum; Daniel Ellsberg, an American anti-war activist; and a poetry festival in violence-ridden Colombia -- the Festival Internacional de Poesia de Medellin. Other Indians who have won this award in the past are Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan and Baba Amte.

InfoChange News & Features, November 2006