By Benita Srivastava
In today’s glitter drenched bazaar of recognition, you no longer need a lifetime of achievement to earn an award – just a free Saturday, a decent selfie and a cornucopia of currency. ‘Icon of Excellence’, ‘Epitome of Beauty’, ‘Best citizen of the year’, ‘Most Influential Personality’, ‘Woman of Substance’, ‘Rising Star of the Town’, ‘Pride of Society’ and the list stretching like a politician’s promises before elections. Once the titles reserved for true trailblazers – people who actually moved mountains – are now handed out faster than discount coupons at a mall opening. You too can be ‘The Legend of the Millennium’. It is a simple equation – nomination fee, attend the Gala event, collect your honour, post it on social media. The organisers pocket the profit, the awardee pockets the ego boost, and Society pockets, well… nothing really. To understand the Mock Award Culture more deeply, let us examine its key dimensions.
The Anatomy of the Mock Awards
Fake awards are today’s fastest growing crop – plant some cash and watch trophies sprout overnight. The organisers play global councils, and everyone walks out not just with a trophy but with the air of a freshly minted legend. The banquets shine brighter than the achievements and social media get flooded with ICONS nobody has ever heard of. In this circus, applause is rented not earned and the only real winners are the printers making all those glossy certificates.
The Business Behind This Glory
Behind the velvet curtains and golden trophies lies the simple equation… sell dreams, print certificate and rent applause. The organisers mint money through nomination fees, sponsorship packages and exclusive media coverage. While the awardees happily buy borrowed glory. The true achievement is the balance sheet of the award organisers.
The Damage that Fake Award Industry Can Cause When awards go on sale, excellence goes out of stock. Mock awards don’t just crown the undeserving, they rob real achievers of the stage and turn glory into parody, recognition into a joke. The award season will go on forever, in every banquet hall from Rajpur Road to California handing out Glory by the kilo and selling Excellence by the plate. When awards are distributed without merit, this dilution diminishes the true achievement. True achievement doesn’t need a stage, a sponsor’s logo or 11000 bucks’ entry fee. It quietly writes itself into the lives it changes, the problem it solves and the legacy it leaves behind.
Voices That Call Out
In the global race for trophies, few runners are as melodramatic as Donald Trump – a man who has eyed the Nobel Prize as a child eyes candy in a shop window. From exaggerated declarations of peace to self-proclaimed greatness, he has turned the chase of awards into a master class in self- promotion. His yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize is less about honouring achievement and more about manufacturing applause – a perfect snapshot of how the award culture today rewards volume over value and show over substance. The government should put a brake on this medal facade and must begin by creating a national registry of awards, where every trophy toting- body, big or small must register and reveal its criteria. A credible award demands a jury of real competence and a selection process that is transparent enough to withstand scrutiny. Let us stop clapping for purchased glory and start valuing genuine merit again. Ballard keenly observed, “Civilized life is based on a number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly.” Mock awards are one such illusion – glossy, eager to please but empty at the core.
(Benita Srivastava is an MA (Gold Medallist), BEd, Educationist and Certified Author for Council for The Indian School Certificate Examinations.)
