Cover story in Siliconeer magazine
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Latests Issue of Siliconeer magazine contains 2 great stories and editorial on Dr. Binayak Sen.
We Compiled a PDF with relevant articles from the siliconeer Magazine (fair use) . You can also read Articles as text below |
Articles
- Editorial: A PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
- Cover story: Free Binayak Sen: Global Support for a rights activist : Article by Ranjitha Moorthy
- A Monopoly on Violance : Salwa Judum : Article by Anu Mandavilli.
Editorial: A PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE
Indian Americans never tire of marveling at India’s blistering growth rate, and free market-wallahs in the U.S. are happy to join the party. There is no question that the economic reforms have unleashed an economic dynamism that has totally changed the way the world - and for that matter, India - looks at itself.
But wait, hold your applause. Amid all the hoopla over high-rise complexes, glitzy malls and a frenzy of conspicuous consumption in India’s metropolises (remember, only the very rich are invited to this party), you have to step back for a moment and ask the question: All this growth is fine, but is it being spread out equitably enough so that India’s crippling poverty is addressed?
The answer cannot be in the affirmative. Away from the metropolises, go to India’s rural hinterland and the grim reminders pop up.
While well-heeled Indian pat themselves on the back and bask in the glowing praise of gora “experts,” rural India has been ravaged by the worst spate of farmer suicides in its recorded history.
From Chhattisgarh comes the disquieting news that India’s much heralded democracy and rule of law is also not all that it’s cracked to be. The South Asian record on tribals is abysmal - nothing new there. What is new is that there appears to be a growing nexus between rapacious firms and the state elite to rid the land of those pesky tribals. The pretext is a Maoist insurgency, the solution: a dreadful violent vigilante army made out of lumpen elements - salwa judum.
Caught amid this violent battle is a man who should never have been arrested in the first place, but India, you see, is under a frenzy of ‘”reform.” Dr. Binayak Sen, a pediatrician and human rights activist whose compassion and support for disadvantaged tribals has won international acclaim, just completed a year in prison in Raipur.
Not only has he not been brought to trial, the police haven’t even filed a charge sheet. They charge him of sedition - a catch-all judicial technique perfected in the days of the Raj. To date, their attempts to back their charges have collapsed laughably. Top Indian newspapers and intellectuals in India and Nobel laureates internationally have pleaded for his release. Is the Indian government listening? Read more about it in this month’s cover story.
cover story
FREE SEN BINAYAK: GLOBAL SUPPORT FOR A RIGHTS ACTIVIST
A gentle pediatrician, whose work with tribal communities in Chhattisgarh has drawn international acclaim, is languishing in jail without trial or even a chargesheet for over a year, writes Ranjitha Moorthy.
A young doctor graduated from Christian Medical College in Vellore with a gold medal. A fairly comfortable life with a busy practice was his for the taking.
Instead, he did something very odd by conventional Indian middle class standards.
He went to the remote villages of Chhattisgarh, and ministered to the sick children and adults of the impoverished, marginalized adivasi or tribal population.
He didn’t stop there. With his wife Ilina, he founded Rupantor (the Bangla word for ‘”transformation”) where he got the indigenous people involved in sustainable farming.
You would think such a man should be treated like a hero.
And you would be right.
Dr. Binayak Sen has been awarded the 2008 Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights by the Washington, D.C.-based Global Health Council, which represents public health organizations and professionals working in over 140 countries in six continents.
But here’s the odd thing. In his own state, his very own state government isn’t impressed. In fact, itt has thrown him in jail, where he is languishing for over a year. The government accuses him “sedition,” a mendacious tool of the British Raj to clamp down on all political dissent.
Welcome to the brave new world of Indian “reforms” where the rule of law is the tool of the mighty. Sen’s supporters have been vociferous in saying that the government has been after Sen because he has exposed the government’s abuses. Sen has uncovered human rights violations by the state and other armed groups. He has highlighted starvation deaths, dysentery epidemics, poor conditions of under trial prisoners, custodial deaths and extra judicial killings. Sen has also worked on the issues of right to food, work, health and education. He has been amongst the most vocal opponents of Salwa Judum, a private militia movement armed by the Chhattisgarh government to combat Maoist insurgency - that has contributed to a spiraling increase in violence and displacement of thousands of tribals.
The government’s answer to Sen’s pertinent questions was to arrest him and brand him a terrorist with Maoist sympathies. The sad part is that Sen is one of many such human rights activists still awaiting justice in jails across India - all arrested under dreaded draconian laws. One of these laws redefines the word “unlawful,” covering all organizations that make the government uncomfortable. It criminalizes all organizations that are legitimately engaged in thought-provoking actions amongst the public. One law also makes it illegal for the press to report on the genuine activities of such organizations. Another greatly increases the state’s power to arrest and incarcerate people at will without either trial or evidence of guilt. These black laws are now being used to silence voices of reason. Voices that can make a difference to the lives of ordinary people. Voices such as that of Dr. Binayak Sen.
The 58-year-old pediatrician was selected by an international jury of public health professionals for the international award because of his years of service to poor and tribal communities in India, his effective leadership in establishing selfsustaining health-care services where none existed, and his unwavering c commitment to civil liberties and human rights. In addition to working with the PUCL, Sen and his wife, Dr. Ilina Sen,are the founders of Rupantor, a community-based nongovernmental organization that has trained, deployed and monitored the work of community health workers spread throughout 20 villages. Rupantor’s activities include initiatives to counter alcohol abuse, violence against women and to promote food security.
“Dr. Sen’s accomplishments speak volumes about what can be achieved in very poor areas when health practitioners are also committed community leaders,” said Dr. Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council. ‘”He staffed a hospital created by and funded by impoverished mine workers, and he has spent his lifetime educating people about health practices and civil liberties-providing information that has saved lives and improved conditions of thousands of people.
His good works need to be recognized as a major contribution to India and to global health, he is certainly not a threat to state security.”
Sen’s compassionate care looked beyond poverty, caste, creed and ideology - a fact that led him to treat Narayan Sanyal, a senior Naxalite leader in Raipur jail. Although Sen ministered Sanyal under the watchful eye of the jail authorities, Sen was accused of aiding and abetting people like Sanyal and furthering antinational causes.
What brought about the state’s wrath upon Sen? On March 31, 2007, the Chhattisgarh government claimed that 12 Maoist insurgents were gunned down in a clash with the police. An investigation led by Sen revealed the truth - the 12 people killed were not Maoists - they were simply innocent tribals shot at close range. When Sen drew attention to this parody of human rights, the human rights commission in the state ordered an exhumation. The government’s response was to foist false charges on Sen of nursing Maoist sympathies and then to incarcerate him!
What you can do. Visit www.binayaksen.net, www.FreeBinayakSen.org and www.PUCL.org, put your name to a petition demanding the unconditional release of Dr Sen. Go ahead and organize or feel free to participate in a vigil to free Dr Sen and protest Black Laws - email mail@friendsofsouthasia.org for more information on events and vigils. Raise awareness by writing in newspapers and local media about the abuse of human rights, the plight of genuine activists and draconian laws.
Ranjitha Moorthy is an advertising professional from India who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her interests include raising awareness about social causes back home, the classical Indian fine arts of Carnatic music and Kathak, and blogging. Her nostalgia-filled blog - www.janaganamana.wordpress.com - covers topics ranging from homesickness to Buddhist philosophy.
subcontinent:
A MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE : SALWA JUDUM
The right wing Salwa Judum vigilante group is a sign of the state’s shocking abdication of its responsibility to protect the rights of all. The violent group conducts a virtual ethnic cleansing of tribal people to further the corporate agenda of companies casting a lustful eye on Chhattisgarh’s land and resources, writes Anu Mandavilli.
The most disturbing thing about Salwa Judum isn’t that it provides such a shocking contrast to the glossy tales of dizzying growth rates, or of India Shining (and shopping!) that one hears - it is that the former is the ugly underbelly of the latter, that the violence of Salwa Judum is almost always the silent partner that enables this new prosperity. Indeed, to claim surprise that this is so is only the luxury of the pusillanimous few - the authorities in Chhattisgarh, for example, seem to have no such illusions about the price of “development.”
Take for example the fact that Salwa Judum was promulgated in June 2005, within days of the signing of Memoranda of Understanding between the Government of Chhattisgarh and Indian conglomerates Tata and Essar about the setting up of steel plants in Bastar district. And the fact that Maoist rebels in the region are insisting on the people’s rights over jal, jangal and zameen - the water, forest and land, and are therefore resisting the corporate takeover of their lands. Take these two facts, add thegovernment’s determination to expropriate tribal lands, and there you have the bloody genealogy of Salwa Judum, a privately funded vigilante army that recruits, arms and trains members of indigenous tribes to fight Maoist rebels.
Starting in June 2005, local media in Chhattisgarh reported that local politician Mahendra Karma had taken up leadership of a new movement called Jan Jagran Abhiyan, or a “people’s-awakening movement.” Karma claimed that Salwa Judum meant “Peace March” in the dialect of the Gond tribes, though others have said that a more accurate translation would be “Purification Hunt.” Salwa Judum entails the arming of civilians of by the state, ostensibly to counter Maoist violence, thus in essence creating private militias. The permanent state of war created by Salwa Judum has led to large-scale and apparently voluntary displacement of indigenous communities, thus freeing up for corporate and industrial use land and natural resources that have historically belonged to local communities. Around 640 villages in Chhattisgarh are now officially listed as “abandoned,” but journalist Shubhranshu Choudhury who interviewed people in the government-sponsored refugee camps concludes that Salwa Judum, rather than being a spontaneous reaction to Maoist violence, is in fact designed to create conditions that lead to involuntary displacement, i.e. by people fleeing the violence of Salwa Judum. Choudhury’s interviewees in the refugee camps reported that members of Salwa Judum were going from village to village, forcing people to join with them. If the villagers refused to do so, their houses were burnt, and some of those who resisted were even killed. Choudhury also clarifies that people’s refusal to return to their villages is not a response to Maoist violence, as the state claims, but is rather a result of fears of retaliation by the Salwa Judum.
As numerous reports since by human rights organizations like the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and the People’s Union for Democratic Rights have shown, Salwa Judum has wreaked havoc on indigenous communities through human rights abuses including staged “encounter” deaths and extra-judicial killings. Governmental bodies like the National Commission for the Protection of Children Rights have visited the camps and have expressed concern, while the Administrative Reforms Commission has recommended the disbanding of Salwa Judum. Writing about Salwa Judum, Indian historian Ramachandra Guha points out that this method of creating conditions for involuntary displacement is a well-known militaristic technique called “strategic hamleting.” (Essentially a form of demographic re-engineering, strategic hamleting was used by U.S. troops against the native population of Philippines as part of an effort to quell militant peasant and workers groups during the Filipino-American war, and again during the U.S.’s war against Vietnam as a counterinsurgency measure that was part of a scorched earth policy.) The Supreme Court of India, while responding to a public petition filed by Ramachandra Guha, Nalini Sundar and E.A.S. Sarma challenging the legality of Salwa Judum, expressed its disapproval of Salwa Judum. As reported in The Hindu, Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan asked “How can the state give arms to some persons? The state will be abetting in a crime if these private persons kill others.”
Legal regimes such as the Salwa Judum, in tandem with laws such as the CSPSA (Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act) and the UAPA (Unlaw- ful Activities Prevention Act) work to shield the government from scrutiny by members of the public as well as by the media in that they criminalize any inves- tigation or reportage about an organiza- tion once it is deemed “unlawful” by the state. These draconian laws sanction the violation of due process by the state and thus contravene internationally accepted norms of jurisprudence and of demo- cratic governance. As K.G. Kannabiran, national president of PUCL argues in his letter to the National Human Rights Com- mission, the CSPSA and UAPA operate by criminalizing the very performance of civil liberties activities, and culpability is decided not by direct proof, but through guilt by association. This is the context in which many activists and journalists are questioning the charges of sedition brought against health and human rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen who has been incarcerated for over a year in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. They have pointed out that the state’s evidence about Dr. Sen’s “Maoist connections” refers to Binayak Sen’s meetings with Narayan Sanyal (a jailed 70-year-old Maoist leader), which took place with the permission of the jail authorities, in their presence, and under their close supervision, when Sen, as the vice-president of the PUCL, visited Sanyal in the Raipur Central Jail to provide medical and legal assistance. That the evidence is flimsy is probably the point - as part of his work with the PUCL, Sen has been amongst the most vocal opponents of Salwa Judum, and it appears that he is being made an example out of, to serve as a salutary warning to others tempted to exercise their rights as citizens in a democratic state.
Sadly, it appears that the success of the Chhattisgarh government in us- ing “Maoist terror” to justify violence (not unlike the violations of fundamental democratic values and liberties seen in the West under the guise of waging the “War on Terror”), has emboldened others. In May 2008, the government of Manipur adopted a Salwa Judum-like program of arming civilians against Maoist violence. The state is clearly the main sponsor of this operation. According to published reports, about 300 youths at Heirok and 200 youths at Chajing, commanded by police forces, will be recruited to pro- vide security to the people. Each youth would be provided with Rs..3,000 by the government and the Manipur Police Housing Corporation will construct bar- racks for the recruits, and all of them would be provided with .303 rifles and motorcycles.
The situation in Chhattisgarh, and now in Manipur must concern all peo- ple of conscience. The history of Latin America offers many examples of govern- ment-sanctioned private militias that have been used to advance corporate agenda. These have been often followed, as if by logical extension, by private militias/ paramilitary forces owned and operated by particular corporate entities thus by- passing the state altogether. One wonders if this is what’s next for Chhattisgarh and for India - when the state’s facilitation of corporate agenda turns eventually to complete abnegation of its role as the custodian of a land and its people, and a repudiation of its responsibility for the well-being of all.
Anu Mandavilli is an activist for issues of social justice. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
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Gallery
From freebinayaksen.org- Chief of Police of Indian State under Fire for Human Rights Record at Berkeley Conference
- Letter by concerned academics to the Director-General of Police, Chhattisgarh
- Scrap Salwa Judum : Brigandry in the name of self-defence
- UPDATE On Dr. Binayak Sen’s TRIAL (15 Sep 2008)
- The Right to a Fair Trial Compromised in the Name of Security: The Case of Dr. Binayak Sen
- Updates from Google News
- Chhattisgarh DGP under Fire for Human Rights Record at Berkeley ... - MyNews.in
- BINAYAK SEN - ZNet
- Dada (Original version - English) - MediaPart
- Spiritual guru offers to mediate between government, Maoists - Fresh News
- Community to protest Indian police official's participation in UC ... - World Sikh News
- Living to tell the tale of Tyranny - Express Buzz
- Reports From Indian Media
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This is how it is in Free India.
How is it that no one has thought of filing an habeas corpus?
The SC seems more humane. Has it not taken any notice of this?
Unless the support for him goes into a tidal wave, nothing will happen.
I am reminded of the Hindi movie- ‘Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani.’
I am ashamed.
If there is anything that we can do, I am for it.