DANTEWADA(CHHATTISGARH): The authorities call it Operation Green Hunt, going by the conventional wisdom that the Maoists being chased — in Chattisgarh in this case — fight from thick jungles. But many of the victims appear to have nothing to do with the insurgency.

Witness accounts, in one instance among others, show that security forces killed seven people in Goompad village of Konta Block in Dantewada district in the concerted action that began six weeks ago. Two more people were killed from the neighbouring Bandaarpar village the same day.

In Goompad, Madvi Yankaiya (age 50) was hacked to death with an axe, his brother Madvi Joga said. Madvi Bajaar (50), his wife Madvi Subhi

(45), their daughters Madvi Kanama (20) and Madvi Mooti, (8) were killed, as their home was closest to the approaching forces. Also killed were their neighbours, Soyam Subaiya (20) and Soyam Subhi (18). They had been married only for a year.

The Adivasis of Bastar have little or no use for the Roman calendar; so it is hard to calculate the date of the attack, or the exact age of the victims. But surviving witnesses put it around the first week of October — which was the time that Green Hunt commenced. The Dantewada SP said an encounter took place at Goompad on October 1. They produced no bodies of alleged Naxalites at the police station. It was claimed that the villagers carried away the bodies of the dead.

On the day of the attack, most of the villagers fled when they heard gunfire and screams. Few looked back to see what was happening. But they did see that the attackers wore ‘punjaar gadu’, which, translated from Gondi to Hindi, means ‘phoolwale kapde’ — an adivasi way to describe jungle fatigues.

Many villagers left for the Andhra Pradesh border with just the clothes on their backs and a few other items. A few returned after the security forces left to assess the damage. Two homes were burning. And lying before one was 18-month-old Madvi Mukesh, covered in blood, crying next to the remains of his aunt, Madvi Mooti (8).

He was missing three fingers. His mother lay in a pool of blood — as also his maternal grandparents.

The villagers who returned to bury the bodies claim they saw numerous stab wounds on the bodies of most victims. One said Mukesh lost three fingers in an attack with a sharp object on his 20-year old mother. He was spared.Mukesh’s father was in another village that day and would meet his first born again only when they’d crossed the state border to enter Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. More than half the villagers of Goompad are now internally displaced persons (IDPs), living in fear of the AP authorities. They don’t mean to return home. Interestingly, only the villagers of the Dorla tribe fled. The Muria tribals have remained at Goompad.

All the dead are Dorla. Their ‘para’ or section bore the brunt of the assault — the rest had time to escape into the jungle.

At Goompad, villagers claim there are an equal number of Muria and Dorla families. The first Muria family came around 25 years ago. Now the ratio is almost equal. There have been no inter-tribal tensions in this village.

“We go to their festivals, they come to ours,” said one IDP in an undisclosed village in Khammam district.

“What about the Naxalites? Have they done anything to you?” I asked.

“No.”

“Have they done anything good for you?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Sometimes they come and take us for meetings and sometimes they ask us for food when we barely have enough, but they mostly leave us alone.”

Goompad is in the interior. It is off the road, devoid of government services, always seen as a ‘Naxalite supporting’ village by the security forces. Villagers never openly criticise the Naxalites for fear of informers lurking in their midst. But I often speak to them alone. I asked another villager, ‘Have the Naxalites ever beaten anyone here in this village?”

“Once, when a man didn’t want to go to a meeting.”

Union Home minister P Chidambaram may be right when he says Green Hunt is a media creation — for a version of it has been happening in Chhattisgarh over the last four years.

The security forces have indiscriminately killed non-combatants in areas not

under government control. The victims are termed as Naxalites. The press in Chhattisgarh is harassed and reporters imprisoned for talking to villagers, so few are willing to enter these areas. There are reports that villagers were also punished for talking to reporters and outsiders. The pattern persists — the security forces comb an area, claim they killed Naxalites, and villagers speak of atrocities — provided someone listens.

Many have migrated to Andhra Pradesh, Others do not leave Chhattisgarh but retreat further into the jungles. Those who do go to AP tend to return because of harassment from the authorities and the local populace. Their new settlements are often burnt down.

Meanwhile, 315 new families from Chhattisgarh have migrated to AP. Each police station has a list of local tribals. Anyone not on the list is a suspected Naxalite. Intra-village tensions often take place over land — in Maamillavaye village of Khamam district, the resident tribals burnt the settlements of the Chhattisgarh arrivals. They also burnt the settlements of IDPs living for the last four years. Some have been there for over 10 years.

Eventually, a compromise was reached with the help of local activists. The villagers of Maamillavaye promised to rebuild the IDP settlement.

At Kamantome village, also in Khammam, a recent alleged Naxalite encounter saw nine villagers detained for six days. Seven were released without charge. Two, Madvi Hidma and Sodhi Oonga, are still in Warangal jail. Kamantome is a village of the Muria tribe. Most of them have been there for four years — escaping the Salwa Judum-Naxalite conflict. They have neither ration cards nor voter Ids. Each villager possesses two to three acres of land and is in constant dispute with the neighbouring native Muria villagers.

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Aruna Roy, a political and social activist, gave up her career in the Indian Administrative Service in 1975 to devote her time to social work and social reform. She has focused her energies on Rajasthan, where she helped establish the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghatan in 1990, a grass roots peoples organization that works for the empowerment of workers and peasants. In 2000, Ms. Roy won the Ramon Magsaysay award for community leadership and for her role in empowering Indian villagers to claim what is rightfully theirs by upholding and exercising the people’s right to information. As Maoist violence continues unabated in the country, Ms. Roy spoke exclusively to Jyoti Malhotra for the Wall Street Journal. Excerpts from the interview.

WSJ: In recent weeks, India’s Maoists rebels have unleashed a reign of terror across the countryside, especially in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, murdering people and damaging public property. As someone who has worked as an activist for many decades in rural India, what is the reason for this sudden violence?

AR: It is now widely accepted that development has not reached people in Chhattisgarh and other parts of the country. The Adivasis, or tribals who live here, are delinked from other parts of the country socially, culturally and politically, they are really like an island. Since Independence, most government officials have treated these areas as punishment postings. Few have wanted to live and work there and those who have gone have not treated the tribals as their equals. It’s been a sort of sahib-servant relationship. Several activists and those in the development sector did work there, but always came under surveillance like Binayak Sen. With Sen, as you know, he was arrested and put behind bars and accused of sympathizing with the Maoists. An important group which reached the tribal areas were the Christian missionaries who set up schools there, followed by Hindu right-wing groups who decided that the tribals must be “saved” from the Christians. These religious tensions usually ended in violence. In the meantime, the tribal belt, which is really the mineral belt of India, became the focus of interest of multinational companies…

WSJ: Tell me the geographical extent of the tribal belt?

AR: It’s huge, from Bihar and Bengal to Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, via Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and parts of Maharashtra. Maoist rebels claim they control 182 districts out of 604 districts in the country. Because of this overwhelming mineral wealth and the desire of the MNCs to tap it, the government, very often, are in hand in glove with these MNCs, and rode roughshod over all democratic norms and principles of political equality and equity to acquire the land. The government tried to use the laws to clear the forests of the tribals who opposed the taking over of their lands. It didn’t work because the law also empowers the tribals to rights over land. When you touch a raw nerve like land, the people rise up. In fact, there is this contradiction today in India, where we talk about the right to property as a fundamental right . But that should also mean that the right to property of the tribals is equally valid and important. So the “persuasion” tried by government and MNCs didn’t work. Alternative employment was offered, but it was so meager that there was an uncomfortable impasse for some time. Meanwhile, there remains no system of governance, no delivery, no sympathy or understanding on the part of the government per se.

WSJ: But there were several infrastructure projects that came up, dams and roads and bridges, surely they were made to help the people?

AR: If you’ve been to any dam site you’ll realize that once dams are constructed, they often don’t benefit the oustees. Often the land gets sold to outsiders. I saw an interesting pamphlet the other day about “Jat land” in Chhatisgarh. Now the Jats are a community in faraway Haryana and Punjab and they’ve been sold land in Chhattisgarh ! It’s illegal because it’s a violation of the rights of tribals who cannot be alienated from their land. So it’s a ‘benami’ transaction (carried out in someone else’s name).

WSJ: How did the Chhatisgarh tribals end up selling their land to the Jats?

AR: The tribals are still not only needy but also very naïve, they don’t know what their rights are, they often make uninformed choices and can be persuaded to mortgage their land and when they cant repay their loans, well, they sell it. In fact, the rest of India has allowed them to remain primitive in their responses. We have not done anything to offer proper opportunities for education or given them a meaningful stake in the mainstream.

WSJ: So how did the Maoists get involved?

AR: This fertile ground offered the Maoists the perfect opportunity because the state was seen as the villain in every way possible. Of course, the state reacted too. With violence it wasn’t going to take things lying down. So they created, at least in Chhattisgarh, the ‘Salwa Judum’ or a people’s army. They armed people, including children, with guns to fight the Maoists. Several people opposed the creation of such a vigilante army, set up and supported by both the Congress and the BJP.

Now an army is mandated to fight an outside, invading force, but how can it fight its own people? The need to seek political and developmental solutions remains on top of the agenda. But the State of Chhatisgarh has become a police state. All those who protested against the ‘Salwa Judum’ were and are being silenced and jailed. So in a situation where the tribals are beaten up by the forest guards, fired upon by policemen and even set upon by the Salwa Judum, what is their recourse without access to democracy ? We have now set up a group called the ‘Citizens for Peace’ and our stand is that all peaceful means must be explored and political negotiations must take place.

WSJ: Home minister P. Chidambaram has said that you should negotiate on behalf of the tribals…

AR: We have offered to come up with new ideas, and help set up a dialogue. But we are clear that we can’t negotiate on behalf of the tribals or with the government. It is the government’s business to negotiate, not ours.

WSJ : So what is your group going to do?

AR: We want to create public opinion that tells both sides of the story. Those of us who live in the big cities know the power of the media and how the media has access only to one kind of thought. But people need to know both sides.

WSJ: Do you think Mr. Chidambaram’s offer to negotiate with the tribals is an acknowledgement that the state has failed?

AR: The government has failed, yes! But the state will fail if the Army and Air Force are used to crackdown against the Maoists. The Air Force is already supposed to have done a survey of the entire area. If the Army and the Air Force do go in, it’s war. That is what we want to avoid. We have openly said that anybody who indulges in violence or kills is a murderer, be it a policeman or a tribal person.

However, I also want to make one thing clear. The law must be fair, there must be good governance and the state must allow independent monitoring teams into the area.

WSJ: Do you think good governance will solve the problem? Isn’t there an ideological underpinning to the Maoist violence?

AR: Good governance may not resolve it, but it will prepare some space for resolution.

WSJ : But you don’t think it’s an ideological struggle ?

AR :The ideological struggle is for the Maoists. For the people it’s different; they are fighting for succor. The people have taken to this ideology because there is no alternative, or they see it as their best alternative. If you give them a better alternative, the people will go there. I would like to quote the Bolivian prime minister Evo Morales here who said, there is the Left and there is the Right, but we are the people.

In our country, the way it often works is that when we vote for a particular political party, the vote is the most reasonable choice from the vast set of negative choices that we face. For the tribals, the truth is that there is no choice, or very little.

WSJ: Are you saying that there is little alternative for the tribals but to follow the Maoists in taking up arms because the government doesn’t exist?

AR: Yes. The truth is that the government doesn’t exist in any of these areas, or hardly. It has only existed to exploit them.

WSJ: So why the violence? Do you think the violence is justified?

AR: These are two separate questions. Violence from either side cannot be justified, but it occurs due to many reasons. It’s a failure of listening to the people. If the state consistently doesn’t listen to the people who are the sovereign, then what results may seem like “irrationality.” Although I don’t think it’s irrational, the fact that the tribal is taking up arms to defend his life, his family, his land. If a man dies fighting for his country against Pakistan he is considered a hero. But if a tribal dies fighting for his land, why don’t we call him a hero? Isn’t it the same thing? As for the violence, we can’t justify it, but we have to understand the circumstances that lead people to choose violence over other means to fight for their lives and livelihood.

WSJ: What about a state like West Bengal which have been run by the Left parties for several decades, why are the Maoists rebelling against them?

AR: There again, MNCs were brought in without consulting the people, which is why they rose up against the Left in Bengal. This has had a direct impact in the elections. Nandigram and Singur, two sites in Bengal where large tracts of land were sought to be given to MNCs are an example of the alienation from people. Truth is, the people who have gone to the “other side,” who became Maoists, were once with the Left, they were supporters of the party. A party which used to consistently listen to the people and were its voice has, somewhere, not listened to them.

WSJ: You say that MNCs grabbed land in the name of development, but several MNCs like the Tatas in Singur in West Bengal, Posco in Orissa are trying to build industry, improve per capita income and socio-economic indicators…?

AR: Let us say that most of the projects grab more land than they need and come in without any democratic process of consultation with people. The government has given large tracts of land to Special Economic Zones and to MNCs in the name of boosting export, but I would like to know whether exports have really gone up. Moreover, they hardly employ local people…We have to ask ourselves, who is benefiting from this industrialization. Who is losing?

WSJ: Aren’t we romanticizing this? After all, industrialization is the way forward…

AR: This is the voice of the people, not a few romantic young people with revolutionary ideals. There is no transparency, that’s the problem. Nobody knows whether the MNC is telling the truth when they demand a certain acreage for developing a project. Or whether the people have really been consulted and whether the government has the people in mind when it agrees to certain terms and conditions. There have been so many betrayals…The breakdown of trust is more or less complete.

Meanwhile, the question also is, what is “development”? If I don’t have food in my belly and my land has been taken away for a big project, is that “development?” How am I going to gauge it? Does 8% or 9% growth every year constitute “development”? Should we measure it by the property we own in the cities or the amount of gold that is bought and sold or whether the people of India have access to food, shelter and health?

And if someone thinks that this 8%-9 % growth is going to take India forward and India’s going to fly, then believe me, it is going to be pulled down by the remaining 80%. That is why this 80% has got to be nurtured, they have to be given rights and access, they need some share in this spectacular growth of ours.

WSJ: And violence…

AR: It is the absolute last resort. When reason has failed, when rationality has failed, when compassion has failed…History teaches us that violence only occurs when everything else has failed. If this is beneficial development, why is there so much violent opposition to it?

WSJ: So this “red corridor” that runs through the heart of India, a state within a state…

AR: I don’t know how “red” it is. But we have to ask ourselves, how to take this forward. I would go the Gandhian way, which is talk to the other side and treat them as equals, negotiate, find out what’s gone wrong. But we can’t send the army in as Home Minister P.Chidambaram is threatening to do. In any case we must talk to the people who are facing the consequences the most.

WSJ: Its interesting that the Congress-led government at the Centre has the same views as all the opposition parties which run the affected states, whether it is the Left in Bengal or the BJP in Chhatisgarh?

AR: Why is that surprising? After all, every political party laying claim to a different ideology has ruled different parts of the country at different times and nothing changed for the tribals. Moreover, the tribal leadership has either not been accepted and promoted, nor have their histories or ideologies become part of the mainstream. Instead, they’ve been forever the subjects or recipients of ideologies evolved by others. One of the biggest failures of independent India has been the failure to give the tribals a place in the national scene.

WSJ: Do you think government programs like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) work in disaffected areas like these?

AR: That’s what the states are claiming. However, programs like the NREGA demand a modicum of peace, you can’t work in the fields if violence is breaking out all around you.

WSJ: On the Right to Information (RTI) Act, with which you’ve been closely associated since its inception 4 years ago, what is the progress so far?

AR: The RTI has become a lifeline for democracy in our country. Despite the failures of various state commissioners or government to implement Section 4. (This mandates the government to publicly disclose as many as 17 bits of information, including its budget, personnel, areas of work, etc.) That’s why today the government can’t touch the RTI without touching the whole of India. Because it’s been used by a variety of people for a variety of reasons, with reasonable success. Sharing information is sharing power and nobody understands this better than the bureaucracy and the politicians, in that order.

But the people are now asking for their, for our share of governance, our share in decision-making, in fact if the tribals of India had had RTI 40 years ago, the situation that we face today wouldn’t have happened. Wherever I travel, people feel the RTI is their Act and they own it. This is a fundamental change from what existed years ago.

Of course, a number of problems remain, of infrastructure, non-delivery, of systems not being in place, information commissioners not being trained, etc. But on the whole, the Act has worked.

WSJ: But despite its success, the government wants to amend it. Why?

AR: The government wants to put all file notings under wrap. Meaning, all discussions, consultations, all reasons for decision-making should become secret. Which means you’ll know nothing about the process, just the end decision.

WSJ: But so far the process has been open?

AR: Yes, so far the process has been open, although they now want to close that. The Department of Personnel & Training which comes under the Prime Minister’s Office, which is responsible for the functioning of the RTI, is now saying that the “consultative process” as well as anything that protects the “candour” of people expressing their opinion, will not be revealed. Behind this move to amend the Act and to kill its spirit, is the bureaucracy.

WSJ: So the government which gave the RTI to the people four years ago is now taking it away?.

AR: Equally horrifying is that all applications which are “frivolous or vexatious” will be disallowed. Now who is going to decide what that is? Possibly, the policeman or the ‘patwari’ (village revenue official) or the ’sarpanch’ (village headman)… Naturally, everything will be “vexatious”…The move undermines the entire Act itself.

WSJ: You’ve been involved with the NREGA on the ground, how well do you think it has worked?

AR: I will say that this is the first rural development service where people know what they are receiving so they can monitor it, where there has been concurrent evaluation, where we know what the losses or gains are. So, every time I read about corruption in the NREGA I am thrilled, not because there is corruption but because for the first time, so many people are protesting against waste of public money. India should be proud.

WSJ: Give me an example…

AR: A women’s group in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh, has got 1400,000 rupees ($29,710) as unemployment allowance because they applied for work and didn’t get it. According to the Act, you have to get work in 15 days within five kilometers of your village, and if the government can’t give you work, it has to pay you unemployment allowance…Could you ever think of something like this before?

WSJ: But what about the enormous leakages and lakhs of rupees down the drain…

AR: For the first time, we know where the money has gone, even if its down the drain. We know who’s swindled it and how it has been swindled. In Bhilwara, in Rajasthan, we have just completed a social audit. We used RTI to access public records and bring them out into the public domain, share it with people whose names are on the records and took a public meeting to testify whether their names were rightly or wrongly there.

You see, RTI is a mandatory provision in the NREGA, which means transparency and accountability on the part of government functionaries is now mandatory. That’s how you find out what’s going on, because now the people can’t be refused information. It’s mandatory for every ‘panchayats’ to do a social audit before the next installment of money is released by the government.

WSJ: What is a social audit?

AR: It is an audit where every penny can be tracked, but it goes beyond the money to questions like quality and choice. They are now taking place all over the country. In Andhra Pradesh, they do more than 2 dozen audits every day, and over the last few months they’ve recovered more than 60 million rupees from defaulters…For me, this is democracy at work.

WSJ: Tell me about your Bhilwara social audit?

AR: We were able to get some transparency in the muster rolls, in the labor lists. Then we discovered how money for materials was being wasted. There was this bicycle repair shop that was issuing bills for the supply of cement and materials worth lakhs of rupees. We traced this through VAT, etc, and now the whole lower political system and the lower bureaucracy is up in arms against us. I’ll give you a positive example too. Thirty Bhil tribal families, which have been migrating for several years looking for work in the big cities, for the first time did not migrate last year. Because of the NREGA, they found work in the village.

If there had been a process like this in Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand, in the tribal areas, why should there have been any violence at all? Fifteen years ago, when we talked of social audit, we were told we were Naxalites, but today a social audit is an institutional form of governance.

WSJ: So this is now being replicated all over the country?

AR: Two years ago, an industrial design institute in Pune, Maharashtra, came to us asking us they wanted to look at the tools used by women in the NREGA. In the last 60 years, nobody has taken so much interest in tools used by poor women. What should the ‘gainti’ or the pick-axe be like, can fiber-glass rods be used to reduce its weight, and should it be both-sided or one-sided? What about the ‘tagari,’ or the tray in which the mud is lifted, should it be lighter? If you carry it on your hip, should it be shaped round or should it have a dent?

Now, with one click of the computer mouse you can find out the name of the man or the woman who has got work under NREGA, her job card number, how many days of work they’ve got, how they have been paid, etc. It’s all on the Web site and its open to everyone.

WSJ: Thank you very much.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125723504437924775.html

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Inspector Francis Induwar was kidnapped and beheaded by Naxalites in Jharkhand recently. Whatever your ideology, is this not cold-blooded murder?

I condemn the beheading. It is absolutely unacceptable. There is no way I can approve of the killing. There are some questions about who has carried it out. If the CPI (Maoist) has carried it out, I condemn their action. Having said this, it is important to remember that the violence of resistance is a consequence, not a cause. We have to see it in the background of state violence.

But Induwar was in a market when he was captured and then later murdered. How can this be consequential violence?

I have already said that I condemn this action. It is murder and has no justification. But the general violence is a consequence of the state violence — both structural and direct. The vast majority of the poor people are kept in poverty because of the state. Today, the state violence and the violence of resistance are locked into a tragic cycle. This cycle needs to be broken. Both forms of violence need to be brought to a halt. We need to halt military engagement and start talking.

Naxalites have never executed a kidnapped police officer before. This seems to be much worse than the normal “tragic cycle” of violence and counter-violence you refer to. Has Naxalite violence reached a new level?

I hope this is an aberration. I would like to believe that this is an aberration. But I also don’t think this kind of brutality is new for either side. I think similar incidents have occurred before.

For the record: Are you associated with the CPI (Maoists) in any way? Do you agree with their demands?

I am a member of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties. That is my only affiliation. I am not a member of any other group. I don’t condemn the Naxal demands for a just society. I am condemning their resort to violence and brutality.

You say state and Naxal violence are equally illegitimate. But state violence has some checks. In your case there is a judicial trial, you finally got bail. But the Naxals killed Inspector Induwar without any semblance of ‘due process’. How can you equate violence by the state and Naxals?

I am not equating anything. I am holding all violence to be illegitimate. I don’t want to get into the business of saying one is worse than the other. But this idea that state violence is more benign is not true. In south Bastar [in Chhattisgarh] lakhs of people have been displaced and hundreds have been killed by state violence. What happened to me is not as bad. Similarly, what happened to Inspector Francis is much worse that what the state has done to me.

You believe that Naxals feed on local grievances against state violence. But in that case why does not a single political party or mass movement support them. Even the LTTE had a mass base. Where is the popular base of Naxals?

This is not my area of expertise. But I don’t agree with you. I don’t think the Naxals could survive as a force if they did not have some local public support.

There is debate currently on whether the government should tackle the Naxals head on, or whether it should facilitate development first. Do you support the argument that development in these impoverished parts will end Naxal violence?

The definitions of development that different classes in society have are different. The kind of development that the ruling classes want is privatisation and widespread displacement. That may not be the idea of development that people living in these areas have. We cannot have a form of development which is a reassertion of the hegemony of a few.

You’ve been out on bail for several months now. How does it feel to be free?

Well, my trial is proceeding in Raipur. One more chargesheet has been filed by the Chhattisgarh government. It is as absurd as the earlier ones. At a personal level, my wife has been diagnosed with cancer, and my life is concentrated on getting her well. I am also in anguish over increasing state-Naxal violence. There doesn’t seem to be any scope for dialogue. It is like watching two locomotives racing towards each other.

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On May 29th Morning I left Mumbai for the fact finding mission to Dantewada for demolition of the Gandhi an Himanshu’s Vanvasi Chetna Ashram. I reached Raipur, but I could not keep my excitement to meet Dr Binayak Sen, the journey from airport to his home seemed like a century.

As I reached his house in Raipur, I saw him standing outside his house in a khadi kurta and pyjama with an effervescent smile. I gave him a huge hug from  more than 2,000 global members of the facebook  group of  Free Dr Binayak  Sen Campaign.

He was surprised and could not believe  that  I was wearing a free  Dr Binayak  Sen T shirt which was an out come of the facebook campaign. I  also showed him the poems written by the facebook members,  an online Binayak Calender 2009  in English, Portuguese, hindi, Urdu , Spanish  Chilean. http://www.binayaksen.net/2009/01/binayak-sen-calenders/

“I cannot believe so many people beyond borders have supported me “he said with tears of joy in his eyes. Donning the T shirt he sat in front of me, which was like a dream come true. “ None of this belongs to me it belongs to all of you, because it is just the beginning Looking at he poems he said that  I consider myself lucky to generate so much worldwide support for my case, but what about others ?? There are hundreds more languishing in jails who are in a similar situation who do not have even have legal aid let alone the support. There are thousands who are being displaced from their land and their access to natural resources across India.  “ So I am under no illusion  about the fundamental situation not changing in any way. “, he said sternly

The campaign has to go further, We have to take the agenda for peace forward and distinguish it from  the agenda for violence. We all are in the same boat and if we cant make the boat sail safely, then we all will sink in together
When I asked him how he is being championed as the hero of naxalites, he very categorically said I am against all forms of violence  whether it is perpetuated by the Maoists or by  the  State. There is no justification for killing. “I am also against structural violence that keeps poor people poor.’, he noted and added that structural violence occurs whenever people are disadvantaged by political, legal, economic or cultural traditions. Its not a default mode, poor are poor not by accident  or because nothing is happening, he pointed out that the poor are poor because there is will and  discipline  that keeps them there.” We have to fight that, not with violence but with we have fight it with peace, love and justice.”.

Talking about the prison conditions he said, usually everyone talks about corruption  but that is not the main problem, the main issue, in the raipur prison where he spent two years.. “Hate the crime, not the criminal.” This dictum of Mahatma  Gandhi is displayed prominently at the entrance of raipur jail, alongwith a potratiat of the Father of Nation.”The main problem in a prison is that an inmate whether a convict or an undertrial has no human dignity,” If a prisoner was caught for even a minor offence by the chakkar adhikari doing the rounds in the wards along with the nambardar, a convict himself, he would be beaten mercilessly by 10 to 15 people with chappals, he has been witness to it. Elaborating on the healthcare in the prison he said to get treatment, medicines or injections at the jail hospital, a prisoner would have to grease the palms of a section of hospital staff and doctors, though possessing cash was against the prison rules. During his incarceration, Sen had come across many cases of poor villagers being falsely implicated in serious cases like murder by vindictive thanedars.His day in prison was like any other prisoner, he used read newspapers and books inside the prison. He was also allowed to keep  radio  with which he kept abreast of the latest news in the outside world.

Expressing his deep concern about demolition of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram he said that he ahs known Himanshu for years now, and he is the only ray of hope for the tribals in the region as there is no one else  who si working for rights of the tribals and landless. He is the Gandhi an who has been able to help to help the villagers resettle. If such peace initiatives are demolished by authorities,   it is a clear indication from state that  they believe in military engagement, and aim to just kill  Naxalites and not go to root cause of naxalism and structural violence perpetrated on poor.
When asked if he will continue his work, he said his health w s a priority and once he is back from Vellore then The PUCL and my personal voice continue to be raised against the Salwa Judum. We will work for political engagement instead of military engagement. Military engagement should be stopped and peace formula should be restored. People should not be killed and political problems should be sorted out through discussions and talks,he pointed out.
On the issue of doctors and their involvement in human rights he said  doctors have a very  micro” view focusing on individual patients, whereas activists have a broader socio-political understanding of health.‘ I believe that my duty of care extends beyond the wards and consultation rooms and into the  lives and homes of people “ Good healthcare cannot be divorced from the basic levels of social, economic and environmental support to which each human also has a right.

I am not here to  simply effect cures or manage disease , I am responsible also to enable and empower   my patients the adivavsis  to  live  as human beings, when they are being treated  as mere pawns at the hands of the government and corporates to rake in their mooolah at the expense of their basic right to life.’  I shared with  Dr  Sen that how for the last two years I have  sent complaints to  World Medical Association to put pressure on Indian medical association to raise his issue of incarceration Dr Sen, just laughed, IMA will never do that, I have been talking against them, Expressing his surprise  at the fact that Chhattisgarh Chapter of IMA had released a two lien statement eh said  ‘ I am surprised “. In our country IMA will be at the forefront demanding rights of the doctors, but they have never come forward , gone on a strike for patients rights, for lack of  medicines… Have they ? NO, it has always been related to the infrastructure of hostels, colleges of MBBS students. They believe that if the  doctors of are empowered and happy they will be able to serve their patients better, but we all know that’s not the case, he gave a sarcastic smile. Good medical practice is, in itself, the embodiment of respect for human rights and should be recognised as such

Dr Sen  has been living and working in Chhattisgarh since 1981 and raised his voice when the state government launched the Salwa Judum movement, a state-sponsored initiative to set up private militias to fight Naxals, saying it led to massive human rights violations.He   is also the Vice president of the  People’s Union for Civil Liberties. He ran a weekly clinic for the local tribals and was piloting a community-based health programme in the state. Rights groups, intellectuals and more than 2,000 doctors from all over the world have signed petitions demanding Dr Sin’s release. Rights groups, intellectuals and over 2,000 doctors from all over the world have signed petitions for his release, the clamour for which increased with Nobel laureates joining the campaign. Free Dr Binayak Sen is a landmark campaign as it has bought people together from various walks of life to voice their right to dissent, as a basic human right. This campaign will continue to raise its voice until and unless all the Prisoner of Conscience languishing in jails are given free and fair trail.

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Akin to George Bush in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attack who, while declaring his war on terror, proclaimed that if one is not on the side of US Government then one is with the terrorists, the Chhattisgarh Government thinks that if one is not with the Salwa Judum, the state sponsored tribal militant group meant to counter the Naxalites, then one would be considered a sympathiser of the Maoists. Binayak Sen paid the price for criticising the Salwa Judum. Now, it the turn of Himanshu Kumar. Encouraged by the recent success of the Sri Lankan Government against the LTTE, the local administration moved in three JCV machines and 500 police personnel on the morning of May 17, 2009, to finish off the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, the centre painstakingly created by Himanshu over the last 17 years in Kanwalnar village of Dantewada district.

Himanshu Kumar was presently engaged in a very important task of resettling tribals who had left their villages amidst violent confrontations between the Naxalites and Salwa Judum since 2005. Some of them were living in camps run by the Salwa Judum, under strict para-military supervision, and some of them had escaped to as far as neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. People of Lingagiri in Bijapur district have returned from Cherla in AP after three years. Similarly, people of nearby Basaguda have returned from a Salwa Judum camp across the river from their village, a river which nobody dare cross for the last three years due to fear of violence from both sides. The government-backed Salwa Judum wants people in camps, most of them on the roadside, but there is a Supreme Court directive that the government must help people resettle in their original villages. Around three lakh people were internally displaced during these violent years, of which 56,000 landed in the camps. But now their number has come down to less than half. More people yearn to return to their villages. The reason is simple. How long can one be dependent on government dole and live under armed security? Life has to start again in villages. That is where the agricultural fields and cattles are. Himanshu, who like the common people, is equidistant from both the Naxalites and Salwa Judum, was helping the people realise their dream of returning to normalcy. The government is certainly not in a position to undertake this perilous and arduous task at the moment.

The government, instead of being grateful to Himanshu, has been vindictive because Himanshu has been raising the cases of human rights violations of tribals by the security forces, SPOs—the 3500 adhoc tribal police force—and the Salwa Judum, the most recent being the killing of 19 innocent people in Singaram who were declared to be Naxalites in January, 2009, in a false encounter by the police. The government and the local administration were obviously not happy with him. They gave him a notice a day before the demolition to vacate the land, which they claimed the VCA was encroaching upon. The land was obtained by the VCA from the Gram Sabha based on a resolution in its favour. Even though it is a tribal area the government refused to recognise the right of the Gram Sabha.

The local administration claims that the provision of Schedule V doesn’t apply because the VCA was not engaged in ‘development’ activity but the ashram was in Himanshu’s personal use. There can be nothing more ludicrous than this. If the ashram was not engaged in development related activities then why was the government using the VCA to run its various programmes? The VCA is currently implementing a government community health scheme, the Mitanin programme and has in the recent past been involved in implementation of watershed management, water and sanitation and education programmes. Himanshu is on numerous government and administrative committees meant to oversee the implementation of these schemes. He is also on the legal service committee of the administration. If one visits the site of what was the VCA before the demolition one can find scatterd latrine seats, the government’s literacy material, health care material etc. amidst the debris. A legal case regarding the land is pending. The administration did not have the patience to wait for the judgment upon completion of hearing.

A question also arises as to why they did not just ask Himanshu to vacate the premises and seal the campus? Was it really necessary to demolish it? After all, public money was invested to create the ashram. The administration, whose record of deliverance so far as various government schemes are concerned is abysmally poor, has chosen to choke whatever little relief was reaching the people through the VCA. If one realises that the basic reason for the emergence of Naxalism is sheer poverty and backwardness of the area, the self-destructiveness of the government’s action becomes obvious.

Himanshu, with a Gandhian orientation and upbringing, represents the middle space between the Maoists and the government. He truly voices the people’s concerns. He is not in the game of asserting authority and control over the people and the land, like both the government and Naxalites are engaged in. That is his strength which allows him to work with the government and at the same time not antagonising the Naxalites. But, unfortunately, the government has decided that there is no democratic space for people like Himanshu. It prefers to use brutal ways like the Salwa Judum rather than the humanitarian methods of Himanshu. It may be able to suppress people’s feelings in the short run and show results to whosoever is pumping money to carry out the anti-Naxalite operations but will it solve the problem? Can the elimination of Prabhakaran be considered the end of Tamil aspiration for sovereignty?

But Himanshu is no Naxalite. He has decided to stay in Dantewada and rebuild his work. That, he thinks, would be the most fitting reply to the government’s vindictive action. He may have to make do without a comfortable seven-acre campus and operate out of some makeshift arragement. He has taken the demolition in stride. He thinks what the people have to face everyday at the hands of violent forces, both state and non-state, is far more painful than what he has to undergo presently. His undaunted spirit will keep the hope alive for people. Himanshu’s presence is necessary for peace to return to the area faster than it should.n

The author is a noted social activist who received the Magsaysay award some years ago but returned it on learning of the US Government’s involvement in the award. He headed a recent fact-finding team to explore the latest developments in Chhattisgarh including the demolition of the VCA near Dantewada.

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From: Economic and Political Weekly, May 30 – June 05, 2009

Letters

Binayak Sen

The People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) welcomes the Supreme Court’s decision to grant bail to Binayak Sen in the case levelled by the Chhattisgarh government that resulted in the noted civil rights activist being confined for over two years in Raipur jail on charges of sedition and participation in “unlawful activities”. It is pertinent to note, in reading out the order, the Supreme Court judge specifically commented upon the long period of incarceration for an undertrial, stating “two years is too much”, before passing the instruction “bail granted”.

Following this order, Binayak Sen has stepped out of jail and resumed his personal and professional commitments that had been seriously hampered as a result of the long-drawn imprisonment. While the bail order is undoubtedly a timely reprieve for Sen who has been suffering on account of poor health in the course of the last few months, the trial and the dangers of a long-drawn legal battle however continue to loom. It is also pertinent to note that the case, in which Sen has been granted bail, also has Piyush Guha, a businessman, and Narayan Sanyal, a central committee member of the CPI (Maoist), as co-accused.

While welcoming the order for release, announced by the Supreme Court, PUDR would like the present order for bail to be applied equally in case of the other two accused. In addition, it would also urge the state of Chhattisgarh to exercise legal restraint and refrain from activities that affect in any way the free movement, privacy and health of all accused and their families.

Gautam Navlakha; Moushumi Basu
Secretaries, People’s Union for Democratic Rights
Delhi

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The demolition of Gandhian Himanshu Kumar’s 17-year-old Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in Dantewada on May 17 shocked everyone acquainted with its work in the backward tribal area of Chhattisgarh. Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey, who led an all-India fact-finding team to Dantewada, tells Jyoti Punwani what his team found:

Why was the Vanvasi Ashram demolished?

Himanshu had become an irritant for the Chhattisgarh government. He was doing a lot of development work, which is really the job of the government. In fact, the SP himself told us that they used to take Himanshu’s help on various occasions. But the ashram was also providing legal aid to the adivasis oppressed by Salwa Judum. In the last two years, Himanshu has filed 500 FIRs on their behalf. His most recent activity was to help resettle in their original villages, those adivasis who had been forcibly displaced by Salwa Judum.

What did the authorities tell your team?

The Chhattisgarh government is quite shameless. It’s immune to pressure otherwise the appeal by 22 Nobel laureates to free Binayak Sen wouldn’t have gone unheard. The SP told us Himanshu was using the ashram for his personal work. The police claimed that there was a prostitution racket being run there because during the demolition,

condoms were found! It appears that more than the chief minister, it is the governor, E S L Narasimhan, a former IB chief, and the DGP, Vishwa Ranjan, who decide strategy in Chhattisgarh. What’s more alarming is that they have the full support of the government of India, obvious from home minister P Chidambaram’s praise for Raman Singh. The Chhattisgarh model is being projected as the successful model to deal with Naxalites.

What can be done now?

The demolition was done on the ground that the ashram had encroached on forest land. But the matter was already being heard in court. There is a Gram Sabha resolution approving of the ashram using this land. So we hope the ashram will win the case. We shall then ask the government to rebuild it.

We have learnt that the government plans a Sri Lanka-type offensive against the Maoists there. We were told they were going to ‘reclaim’ the area. They definitely don’t want any NGOs operating there. It is, therefore, all the more crucial that Himanshu continue his work, for in Dantewada, he is our only hope. His is the only voice that lets people know what is happening there. There are plans to collect money to rebuild the ashram. We have also planned an all-India solidarity meeting in Dantewada.

What did the adivasis tell you?

They really want to be left alone, by the Naxalites on the one hand and the security forces and Salwa Judum on the other, so that they may lead normal, peaceful lives. Himanshu is playing an important role in this. The villagers, who have come back to resettle after three years, clearly gave credit to Himanshu for this.

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Dear friends,

As many of you are aware Himanshu and Kopa of VCA managed to escape Lingagiri in the early hours today through the forest area of that region and got into Bhadrachallam AP more than a hundred kilometres away. The distance between Bhadrachallam and Dantewada is a good two hundred and fifty kilometres.

The moment he got into range he called up his family, his colleagues and friends and supporters and said that he had escaped to Bhadrachallam and would be soon getting back to Dantewada. This is great news and we are glad that Himanshu and Kopa managed to escape the wrath of the local police and Salwa Judum although there are many concerns that still remain. He has addressed the press in Bhadrachallam with Bal Gopalji of HRF who reached late afternoon.

Himanashu gave me a long dictation over the phone of what happened and wanted people to know about what happened in the last four days. I think there are some facts that we need to act upon urgently.

The body of Punam Honga not found says Bijapur SP, Sh. AnkitGarg

The Hindu report of the 5th July which I had circulated had said that Punam Honga had been killed by the Maoists and that his body had been found by the police. Both Himanshu and I talked to Bijapur SP Ankit Garg, who clearly said that they had not found the body of Punam Honga. Thus the PTI news report from Raipur which the Hindu published is false. He said that they are still in the process of investigation. When I checked with DG P Vishwaranjan in the morning about the Hindu report he said that it was correct and the body of Punam Honga had been found. It is a bit of a surprise that the DGP was going by the news reports rather than the police’s own information system.

We are glad that this report is false because then it gives us hope that he is safe and we hope that his abductors will listen to all our appeals and release him soon.

Himanshu’s story of the last four days as dictated over the phone is as follow.

Kopa a target of Salwa Judum and Police

Himanshu told that on the 2nd of July, 2009 when Kopa was returning from Basaguda camp Nagesh Jhari (Panchayat Secretary of Mallepalli) asked him for a lift. Kopa gave Nagesh a lift and moved in the direction of Avapalli, the village of Nagesh. Between Basaguda and Avapalli they were stopped by Maoists and before he knew they had taken Nagesh away. He tried his best to catch up with abductors and chased them but they fled quickly into the forest. There was quite a crowd on the road it was then he realised that Punam Honga (Former Sarpanch of Hirapur) who was travelling in a mini truck had also been abducted five minutes ago. Kopa kept roaming the area trying to look for them. He then went to Awapalli the village of Nagesh Jhari to enquire with the family whether they had got some news of his whereabouts. By then the family had lodged an FIR implicating Kopa too in the abduction.

All night the family members and members of the Salwa Judum troubled them. Nagesh also belonged to Salwa Judum and one his sons is an SPO.

Realising the Kopa was in serious trouble Himanshu came the next morning on the 3rd to Awapalli. Kopa was still being harassed by the family members and members of the Salwa Judum. They all alleged that he had a role in the abduction of Nagesh. Kopa and Himanshu soon left the place to go towards Basaguda and Lingagiri. Before they reached Basaguda camp the police stopped them at Basaguda police station and told Kopa to go back to Awapalli police station. They kept saying that why did Kopa not lodge an FIR after the abduction. The police also told them that the Salwa Judum were after them in both places and would kill Kopa. To which Himanshu told the police to save them if that was the case.

The police was adamant to take Kopa so Himanshu decided to go with him. They made Kopa sit in the jeep and they were accompanied by the same police man who was involved in an earlier rape and murder incident. They were taken to the spot of abduction which was between Basaguda and Awapalli and then they took his statement at the police station.

They also learnt unofficially that there was a serious threat on the life of Kopa. The police and Salwa Judum were very angry with him and wanted him out of the way because he had played an active role in bringing to light the Matwada massacare of 18th March, 2008 where more than 3 tribals were killed by the police and the fourth one was left in an unconscious state. It was Kopa who worked on that and the matter was taken up by VCA in the Chhattisgarh High Court. Kopa was also one of the key person’s who worked on the Singaram fake encounters of January, 2009. He was also the key person who was encouraging villagers to resettle back into the villages. Kopa had earlier written to senior police officials in the State that there was a threat to his life by the local police and Salwa Judum.

From there the two went to Lingagiri village late on the night of the 3rd trying to make their own enquries about the two who had been abducted. On the 4th too they combed the forest area. On the 5th they realised that the Salwa Judum would now get violent as they had been unable to get leads to the two abducted people. They learnt about this from several village women who returned empty handed from the ration shop in the Basaguda Camp. This is the only ration shop for more than fifteen villages. The women told them that they were dragged into the Basaguda police station by the Salwa Judum members and they were beaten up by them. The sales man was threatened by the police that he must not supply rations to them. The police also put a double lock on the shop and they were told that “go starve! you will not get one grain of rice till you do not tell us about the whereabouts of Nagesh Jhari anf Punam Honga”. The police also enquired about Himanshu and Kopa so the women said that they are in Lingagiri village. The members of the Salwa Judum told them that now they would come and burn their villages unless they handed over the two who were abducted.

When the women returned they were in a state of shock as many were from the resettled villages and could not take another displacement. That is when Himanshu sent the sms “Trapped in Lingiri village. Kopa and me will be either jailed or or killed by Salwa judum if both those abducetd are not released. Rehabiliated villagers too in panic. Whole rehabilitation process in Danger, May revert. Himanshu”.

Himanshu and Kopa took the decision to somehow get out of the forest area behind the village. Especially through routes where there were no police stations. In the early hours today, the 6th of June, 2009 they left the village on motor bike and drove non stop and reached AP. On reaching Bhadrachallam they contacted family, colleagues and friends.

With pressure put by all of us on the Chhattisgarh Police, directly and through the Governor, the Bijapur police reached at 12 noon. On learning in the village that Himanshu had left in the morning they came back. The SP Bijapur called Himanshu around 2.30 pm and took his statement.

According to Himanshu

• it is extremely urgent to get the ration shop reopened as people are totally dependent on that shop for food. He said that the villages that would be going hungry with the closure of the shop were Basaguda, Lingagiri, Pesapara, Korsaguda, Pakela, Dharmapuri, Kumarpara, Mallepali, Sarkeguda and a few others. He was keen that the pressure now be put on the police and Salwa Judum from keeping the ration shops from being closed.
• Ensuring the safety of Kopa should be a demand that we must make with the police and the Government who were keen to implicate him in the abduction case. Kopa had not run away from the scene of abduction and had coperated with the family and the police to tell as much as he knew. Why was he being held responsible for the abduction that the Maoists did, he asked?.
• The resettlement and rehabilitation process must continue uninterrupted.
• Finally, from the Maoists demanding the safety and release of Nagesh Jhari and Punam Honga at the earliest.

Kavita Srivastava,
National Secretary PUCL

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Doubtless as it is a victory for the human rights movement, civil society must salute the Supreme Court for its intervention that coincided with the assumption to power of a new national dispensation. The release on bail of Dr Binayak Sen (coram: Katju and Verma, JJ) carries a very timely and resounding message for the Chhattisgarh government and to an equal degree the Centre that for the past two years had ignored appeals from the world over for his release. Of particular interest must be what he has had to say after stepping out as a free man. He fears vindictive action by the Chhattisgarh government. To indulge in a fresh bout of repression will be as criminal as detaining him for the better part of two years without trial and without convincing evidence. Yes, he used to visit the jail, but as a doctor to treat the inmates many of whom were/are Maoists. The Chhattisgarh government has violated the law, doubtless encouraged by the imperviousness of the national government.

As a physician, Dr Sen has now ripped apart the grotesque abuse of human rights through the jail’s institutionalised bribery. The inmates have to bribe medical assistants for an injection, doctors do a favour by feeling the patient’s pulse and the medical fraternity has to be paid to be recommended for hospital admission. Dr Sen makes an understatement when he laments that “there is no human dignity in jail”. The subtext is a travesty of medical ethics, the Hippocratic oath and all that therein is. All this and more as part of the state’s counter-mobilisation against the Left radical. Dr Sen’s alleged offence of handing over one Maoist’s letter to another, while on a professional visit to the jail hospital, is small beer compared to the contrived and criminal indifference of the doctors. Despite successive victories in the elections to the state assembly, Dr Sen’s detention has been a blot on the BJP’s image, as damaging as its reckless handling of the Maoist movement. Quite the most suicidal option was the creation of Salwa Judum, a state-sponsored resistance oufit. For every Maoist killed, two are born. Just as for every Maoist freed, the administration probably makes sure that two are clapped up. Killing the Maoist as a form of public activity and arresting without proven charge do not add up to a policy. The Chhattisgarh BJP’s handling of the Maoists has been disastrous and morally-defeating. Dr Binayak Sen’s plight symbolises state repression.

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in New Delhi

Frontline

The Supreme Court directive to release Dr. Binayak Sen on bail raises the question of the illegality of his detention .

THE Supreme Court’s direction on May 25 to release Dr. Binayak Sen, vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), on bail from the Raipur Central Jail marks a milestone in the history of the civil liberties movement in India. Never before has the bail plea of an individual unjustly kept in prison been the subject of such an intense campaign by intellectuals and activists across the world.

The campaign seeking Sen’s freedom intensified after 22 Nobel Prize winners, including Amartya Sen, signed a public statement on May 9 last year describing him as a “professional colleague” and appealing to the President and the Prime Minister to ensure his release so that he could receive in person the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights in Washington. The helplessness of the Centre, and the refusal of the Chhattisgarh government to oblige only indicated that the struggle for Sen’s freedom could be long and daunting.

When the Supreme Court’s Vacation Bench, comprising Justices Markandey Katju and Deepak Verma, ordered his release on his furnishing a personal bond to the satisfaction of the trial court in Raipur, the Bench had understood the merits of his plea. To the surprise of many of Sen’s well-wishers, the Bench did not find it necessary to listen to his senior counsel Shanti Bhushan’s arguments in support of his release. Nor was it interested in listening to the Chhattisgarh government’s counsel, Mukul Rohatgi, on why bail should not be granted to him. The Bench had already made up its mind, on the basis of the facts of the case.

A number of observers, however, are surprised more about the fact that it took two years for him to come out on bail.

Sen is a renowned paediatrician, who graduated from the Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. From 1976 to 1978, he was a faculty member of the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He left this academic job to work in a community-based rural health centre in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh with its focus on tuberculosis-related problems. During the late 1970s, he became an active member of the Medico Friend Circle, a national organisation of health professionals working for an alternative health system that is responsive to the needs of the poor.

Later, he worked among mine workers in Dalli Rajahara, Chhattisgarh, addressing their health needs and helping them set up and manage their own hospital. Sen then moved to a mission hospital in Tilda where he worked in paediatrics and community health. After the murder of the trade union leader Shankar Guha Niyogi, with whom he was closely associated, Sen shifted to Raipur.

From 1991, Sen has worked in developing relevant models of primary health care in Chhattisgarh. He was a member of the State advisory committee to initiate the community-based health worker programme across Chhattisgarh, now well known as the Mitanin programme. The programme involved training village women in primary and preventive health care in order to discourage harmful practices that resulted in maternal and infant deaths. He also served at a weekly clinic in a tribal community in Dhamtari district. He continued to provide health care to the children of the marginalised, especially migrant labourers. In recognition of his work, the Christian Medical College conferred on him the Paul Harrison Award in 2004, the highest award given by the college to an alumnus for distinguished service in rural areas.

Meanwhile, Sen became the general secretary of the PUCL’s State committee and then vice-president of its national committee. As the general secretary, he helped organise fact-finding campaigns on human rights violations in the State including custodial deaths, fake encounters and hunger deaths and dysentery epidemics and malnutrition-related cases. He also brought to light the large-scale oppression and malgovernance within the Salwa Judum, a state-sponsored anti-naxalite force in Dantewada district.

Sen was arrested on May 14, 2007, under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, and the Indian Penal Code. The accusations against him were that he used to carry secret letters written by an accused lodged in the Raipur Central Jail, Narayan Sanyal, to his associates regarding the monitoring of the unlawful activities of the banned organisation, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), or CPI(M-L), to which Sanyal belongs.

The prosecution alleged that Sen met Sanyal 33 times in the Raipur Central Jail between May 26, 2006, and April 30, 2007. Sen was also accused of arranging a house on rent for the activities of the CPI(M-L) and planning to commit, and being deeply involved in, unlawful activities in Chhattisgarh.

On May 6, 2007, the police apprehended Piyush Guha, a CPI(M-L) activist, and recovered three letters and Rs.49,000 from him. The police claimed that Guha had told them that Sanyal had given those letters to Sen who, in turn, handed them over to Guha for delivering them to certain other persons.

The prosecution alleged that Sen played a vital role in communicating the instructions of Sanyal to the field workers of the CPI(M-L) and promoted naxalite activities in Chhattisgarh. The police also relied on the seizure of a computer and eight CDs allegedly containing objectionable material pertaining to naxalite activities, from Sen’s residence during a search on May 19, 2007.

Although the Chhattisgarh High Court found prima facie evidence that Sen was associated with the CPI (M-L) and therefore refused to release him on bail, many of the allegations against him were demolished during the trial. None of the 38 prosecution witnesses examined by the trial court supported the allegations against Sen.

The police relied on the custodial confession of Guha, which is legally inadmissible. Guha subsequently stated before a magistrate that he had been tortured by the police to make the confession. Understandably, the prosecution did not list him as a witness in the current trial.

The prosecution alleged that Sen and Guha were close acquaintances who met regularly in Raipur hotels. As evidence, the prosecution relied on statements of some hotel owners and employees, which were made to the police as witnesses. But these witnesses later turned hostile and disowned these statements.

The prosecution alleged that Sen had visited Sanyal 33 times in jail, where he falsely posed as the latter’s relative. Sen’s wife, Ilina, filed a Right to Information application to gain access to the jail records. The records showed that Sen had applied for jail visits using the PUCL letter-head, rather than posing himself as Sanyal’s relative.

The police might have recovered some letters with objectionable contents, written by Sanyal, from the possession of Guha, but there is no evidence to suggest that Guha received them from Sen.

The police tried to show further evidence of Sen’s alleged support to naxalites in the form of some documents and computer seized from his house. But they apparently did not distinguish between Sen’s critique of the Salwa Judum and globalisation, which was evident from these recoveries and his alleged pro-naxalite leanings. Neither the Sessions Court nor the High Court, which refused him bail, made this distinction.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 17, 2009, former Supreme Court Judge V.R. Krishna Iyer pointed out some facts of the trial: “By March 2009, of the 83 witnesses listed for deposition by the prosecution as part of the original charge sheet, 16 were dropped by the prosecutors themselves and six declared hostile while 61 others have deposed without corroborating any of the accusations against Dr. Sen. Irrespective of the merits of the case against Dr. Sen, there are very disturbing aspects to the way the trial process has been carried out so far. This is a case of grave injustice which is a cause of much shame to Indian democracy.”

In 2005, the Supreme Court made it imperative for the courts to consider certain matters in an application for bail. These are a) whether there is any prima facie or reasonable ground to believe that the accused had committed the offence; b) nature and gravity of the charge; c) severity of the punishment in the event of conviction; d) danger of the accused absconding or fleeing, if released on bail; e) character, behaviour, means, position and standing of the accused; f) likelihood of the offence being repeated; g) reasonable apprehension of the witnesses being influenced; and h) danger of justice being thwarted by grant of bail.

In refusing bail to Sen last year, both the High Court and the Supreme Court relied on the police’s allegations, as the charges against him had not been framed. To grant bail, there is no necessity to do detailed examination of the evidence and documentation of the merits of the case.

From the High Court’s judgment, it is not clear how it concluded that the evidence against Sen was prima facie sufficient to refuse him bail. By refusing to interfere with the High Court’s questionable judgment on December 10, 2007 (Human Rights Day), the Supreme Court paradoxically reinforced the view that it was not concerned with the rights of commoners. The Vacation Bench’s direction has helped somewhat to reverse that perception.

The direction came as a result of Sen’s plea that he was suffering from a heart ailment, which required timely medical intervention at a hospital of his choice. In fact, that was one of the grounds for seeking bail, so that he could go to Vellore for treatment.

During the hearing on May 4, another Bench of the Supreme Court asked the State government to provide him the best possible medical treatment within the State, and adjourned the case to July, with the liberty to Sen to approach the Vacation Bench for urgent relief, if necessary. The May 4 decision failed to satisfy Sen’s family and friends, who were suspicious of the State government’s sincerity in ensuring Sen’s good health. The grant of unconditional bail by another Bench of the Supreme Court has thus vindicated these suspicions.•

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