Renowned journalist P. Sainath was the recipients of the Fukuoka Grand Prize 2021, one of Japan’s top awards open to people from all Asian countries for “investigate[ing] impoverished farming villages in India, listen[ing] to voices from the rural population”.
The Fukuoka Prize has three categories, Academic Prize, Culture Prize and the Grand Prize. Sainath was the recipient of the Grand Prize. Previous Indian winners of the prize include Professor Romila Thapar (Academic Prize0, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan (Culture) and A.R. Rahman (Grand Prize).
The citation for the award says Sainath, who is the founder of the news website PARI, was awarded the Prize for being, “A passionately committed journalist who has continued to investigate impoverished farming villages in India, listen to voices from the rural population, capture the reality of the people’s lifestyle, and report ‘rural stories’. As Asia goes through turbulent changes, Mr. Sainath has been seeking new ‘knowledge’ and promoting civil cooperation. For this reason, he is a very deserving recipient of the Grand Prize of Fukuoka Prize.”
The 2021 Academic Prize and Culture Prize was awarded to Japanese scholar Mio Kishimoto and Thai writer and filmmaker Prabda Yoon.
Sainath, who has reported extensively on the crises in rural India and the farming economy during his four decades as a journalist, has been the recipient of many awards, including the Amnesty International Global Human Rights Journalism Prize and the Ramon Magsaysay Award. He has also authored several books, the most famous among which is Everybody Loves A Good Drought, and was a part of documentaries such as Nero’s Guests.
Sainath told Newslaundry that with the cash prize of 5 million yen (Rs 33 lakh), he would start a fundraiser to help families of stringers who have died of COVID-19 and start a fellowship for rural journalists from Dalit and Adivasi communities.
During his acceptance speech, he dedicated the prize to his fellow journalists who are reporting from rural India and to PARI. He said the award signals support to an “endanger species in journalism”, referring to his and PARI’s extensive coverage of rural communities. He noted that during the pandemic, when the need for public-spirited journalism is at its highest, corporate-owned media groups have laid off thousands of journalists and workers.