Thursday, January 27, 2005

Declining an Award

    I decided some years ago that I would only accept awards from academic institutions or those associated with my professional work, and not accept state awards.
Said Romila Thapar, in a letter to the President, while declining the honor conferred upon her -- Padma Bhushan. Apparently she had refused to accept the Padma Bhushan way back in 1992 as well. Now I'm not against accepting state awards. Same time, I do not give much importance to those awards. (While most of the awardees usually deserve it, some get it based only on their contacts. Moreover a lot of deserving people never make it.) But there's something that I like about these actions, something that I won't be able to explain well.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, well-known Pakistani nuclear scientist about whom I had a post a few days ago, had refused to accept the prestigious Pakistani award, the Sitara-e-Imtiaz. His reason:

    I do not consider the process by which awards are given as carrying legitimacy. If you give someone an award in a field of science, only a panel of scientists should decide whether that person deserves it or not. A bureaucrat should not have the right to decide that a person - A or B or C - is worthy of some award. The present procedure serves only to create a culture of sycophancy that rewards flatterers.

posted by Anand @ 1/27/2005   4 comments

4 Comments:

At 3:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

an award from the state can bring the work of someone known only to specialists into public domain and that is their primary role.the mechanism employed for judging a person's suitability for a particular award might be the subject of debate but flaws therein do not render the awards themselves irrelevant or unimportant.

one could say in these times of hyperspecialization and academic (and other) ivory towers, state awards serve to keep the finer details anchored to the context of the larger picture. needless to say, they also offer opportunities to dissidents and other activists a very potent opportunity to make telling public statements (and sermons) as well.

 
At 3:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

an award from the state can bring the work of someone known only to specialists into public domain and that is their primary role.the mechanism employed for judging a person's suitability for a particular award might be the subject of debate but flaws therein do not render the awards themselves irrelevant or unimportant.

one could say in these times of hyperspecialization and academic (and other) ivory towers, state awards serve to keep the finer details anchored to the larger picture. needless to say, they also offer opportunities to dissidents and other activists a very potent opportunity to make telling public statements (and sermons) as well.

 
At 9:34 AM, Blogger Anand said...

You have said it well. That's more or less my take on that too.

 
At 7:53 PM, Blogger Rob said...

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