Binayak Sen’s release: A critical appraisal through the lens of political economy
May 31, 2009
Statement from Sanhati on Binayak Sen’s release
We critically welcome the Supreme Court of India’s decision of May 25, 2009 to grant bail to Binayak Sen, a socially committed paediatrician and civil liberties activist, who had been arrested on May 14, 2007 on false charges of abetting Maoist activity in Chhattisgarh, sedition, and waging war against the State under various sections of the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA), 2005 and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 2004 (amended) and the IPC. While this can be certainly seen as a small victory for the human rights and civil liberties movement in India, we cannot help but point out that the real battle for democratic rights lies ahead. For we must not forget that Binayak Sen was granted bail “on furnishing personal bonds to the satisfaction of the trial court”; the trumped-up charges against him have not been dropped and, as he stated after his release, there are threats to his life from various state and non-state actors. Besides, the Indian penal system has stolen two precious years from the life of a socially committed doctor for no culpable offense; we can hardly forget that Binayak Sen was repeatedly denied bail by the Indian judicial system for two whole years. Who will answer for this unconscionable act?
But beyond the battle for Binayak Sen’s individual rights, as he has himself always pointed out, there are larger political and social issues at stake. He was attacked by the State when he, as a functionary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, started questioning the gross human rights violations of the state police and the state-backed vigilante group Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh. Let us remind ourselves that on March 31, 2007, several adivasis had been killed by the state police who alleged that they were Maoists. A week before his arrest, when these bodies were exhumed and sent for autopsy due an order by the Human Rights Commission, questions were raised about the veracity of the police account of the incident; and Binayak Sen was at the forefront of efforts to expose the extra-judicial killings practiced by the state police. That is what drew the ire of the State.
Unfortunately, these human rights violations continue, the Salwa Judum still roams free and voices of dissent are being as brutally crushed by the repressive apparatus of the State as before. On May 17, 2009 the premises of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA) was demolished by the local administration on the pretext that the VCA had been constructed on revenue forest land. Why was the VCA attacked by the State? Just like the PUCL, the VCA brought to public view the fake encounter killings of 12 adivasis by the police on March 30, 2009. Himanshu, the main VCA activist, had filed a case in the Bilaspur High Court furnishing the details of the fake encounter, challenging the police story of the incident and alleging that the State government, despite the order of the Supreme Court, was not allowing adivasis to return to their villages. Himanshu alleged that these vast amounts of tribal land were, instead, being given off to corporate houses.
It is this political economy which underlies all these incidents, the brutal political economy of state-led resource grab, what geographer David Harvey has called “accumulation through dispossession”. Tribal land, and the resources that go with it, is what corporate (both Indian and foreign) capital is after. It is primarily to “clear off” the tribal population from this land, and thereby make this huge pool of resources available to corporate capital, that the State has initiated a phase of severe repression. It has given itself enormous and arbitrary powers of repression through draconian laws like the CSPSA and the UAPA; it has supplemented these “legal” measures with the extra-legal Salwa Judum. Any and every dissent is, thereby, met with with brutal violence.
While Binayak Sen and the VCA were among the most visible targets of the attack of the State, there are thousands of other less visible activists and organization that have also faced severe repression, intimidation and harassment. Many of these less-known human rights and political activists continue to languish in jail for years without any recourse to legal mechanisms or have met worse fate in the hands of the police or the Salwa Judum. To name just a few of the cases that have come to light: Ajay T.G., Lachit Bordoloi, Prashant Rahi, Shamim Modi, Abhay Sahoo, Bhukhan Singh, Niyamat Ansari, Govindan Kutty, Praful Jha, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Ashok Reddy, Dhanendra Bhurule, Naresh Bansode; many of these activists have been charged under the draconian UAPA/CSPSA, and have been kept under prolonged detention without bail. And there are the hundreds of less celebrated cases which are not even reported, where poor villagers charged with false cases and who do not even have the wherewithal to seek legal remedies, are kept in jail for months and years.
The reign of state terror in Chattisgarh and the rest of India must be opposed at all costs. We must demand the repeal of draconian laws like the CSPSA and the UAPA; we must demand that the Salwa Judum and other state-sponsored private militia be disbanded immediately and its acts be brought under the scrutiny of the legal system; we must demand that all state officials involved in extra-judicial killings be brought to book; we must demand that political prisoners and prisoners of conscience be treated humanely and with dignity. We hereby call on all civil liberties organizations and activists to join in a nationwide struggle for the democratic rights of political prisoners. To make our voices reverberate across the corridors of power, we must, moreover, link all these struggles for democratic rights and civil liberties to the struggle against neoliberalism that the Indian ruling classes are trying to push down our throats.
A collection of articles on political prisoners in India, civil rights, Binayak Sen, and the political economy of Chhattisgarh:
1. The formal order of the May 25 2009 hearing which granted bail to Binayak Sen
2. TOI editorial on Binayak Sen’s release: argues about the right to bail as a democratic right and provides some interesting figures about the state of undertrials in India; links the arrest of Binayak with the exposing of extra-judicial killings in CG.
3. HT editorial on Binayak Sen’s release: nicely relates the arrest of Binyak with the encounter killings in Santoshpur
4. Another activist’s daughter awaits: Prashant Rahi languishes in jail
5. About Binayak Sen: a biographical introduction to the socially committed doctor and civil rights activist
6. Amnesty International’ s statement on Binayak Sen’s release on bail
7. An International coalition’s statement on Binayak Sen’s release on bail: mentions the names of other prominent activists still in jail and points to the problems of (a) draconian laws, and (b) the plight of less visible prisoners
8. Binayak Sen speaks on his prison experience: stresses the sheer indignity and inhumanity meted out to undertrials and prisoners alike in India
9. The political economy of contemporary CG: an early editorial by Analytical Monthly Review in June 2007
10. When the State Makes War on its Own People: Violation of peoples rights during the Salwa Judum; a good report on the Salwa Judum which came out in 2006
June 7th, 2009 at 11:21 am
This is a short yet precise article on human rights violation througout India.However, the author forgot to mention the name of Mr Piyush Guha, a small businessman from Kolkata who was arrested for having a link with Binayak Sen’s case under the same draconian laws even before the arrest of Binayak Sen took place (Unofficially on 1.5.07, on police record 6.5.07)and has been still languishing in Chattisgarh jail. Let us raise our voice for unconditional release of Piyush along with other activists!!