Fatima Burnad was honoured with the Ayodhidasan Pandithar Award in recognition of her dedicated work for the rights of women, Dalits and marginalised people in India. As President of the Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED) she has taken leadership in the empowerment, organising and mobilising of people’s movements in her native State of Tamil Nadu and other areas in India. Her contribution to the Dalit movement and empowerment of Dalit women is invaluable.

She led campaigns for the rights of Dalits (so called untouchables), millions of Indian citizens discriminated purely because of their ‘out-caste’ status. Considered “untouchables” many have suffered murder, torture, rape, their homes burnt to the ground, their children brutalised and their basic human rights systematically denied for too long. Their struggles for dignity and recognition as human beings within Indian society for land, and for socio-economic and political rights, have been exacerbated by the onslaught of globalisation.

On December 17, 2006, commemorating the day of the Dalit’s Movement Leader, ‘Father of Indian Constitution’ Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s Conversion to Buddhism, a Golden Jubilee celebration at Vellore was organised by Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Research, Sathuvachari, Vellore district, Tamil Nadu. Fatima Burnad was the only woman among the other 20 persons honoured with the Award: researchers, social workers, Buddhist leaders, Dalit reporters, writers and politicians.

Fatima Burnad has been an APWLD member since 1989 and made an invaluable contribution to APWLD’s work by bringing in grassroots movement’s perspective into the regional women’s human rights work and translating APWLD’s feminist perspective into the grassroots level work.

APWLD extends heartfelt congratulations to Fatima Burnad on winning the Ayodhidasan Pandithar Award and commends her committed work for Dalit women’s human rights!