Dr. Binayak Sen, the one who revolutionized community health in tribal India, a well known advocate of human rights, was today sentenced to life imprisonment by lower court of the Indian judiciary for allegedly waging a war against India. The same shoddy treatment was meted out to Maoist ideologue Narayan Sanyal and a Kolkata businessman Piyush Guha who were also convicted for sedition and sentenced to life imprisonment for colluding with Maoists to establish a network to fight the state. The doctor and human rights activist whose work has saved countless lives in the forlorn depths of forgotten India, was accused of colluding with Maoists. It was not important that there was no shred of evidence to point to any real act of collusion, nor any evidence that his actions resulted in death or violence. The truth is that it was not his actions but his ideas that threatened the State. It was for thinking freely and dissenting that he has been arrested and imprisoned for life. He is a prisoner of conscience.
How can a frail doctor, living in the remote parts of Chattisgarh, armed with nothing more than a surgeon’s knife and needles wage a war against a rising super power? Many do not wait to raise this question, but to those who do the answer is simple. It was not his weapons (of which there is none) or his muscles that threatened the state. He was a witness. A witness to the goriness of this super power; A witness to the loot and plunder of mother earth; a witness to the brutal war against the tribals; A witness to the marauding police and their illicit militia (salwa judum); A witness who refused to remain a spectator. When a super power armed with sophisticated weapons and an hypnotizing mass media descends on the little people in lust for the wealth hidden under their homesteads, Binayak was shouting out the truth. He was destabilizing the carefully crafted consensus for mass murder. He was threatening the “National Interest” that lies in plundering the mineral wealth of central India for the benefit of TATAs, Ambanis, Poscos and Vedantas. That is why he remains a threat and he needs to be neutralized.
There can be only two kinds of witness to state violence, you are either a mute witness or you are a witness who will be muted. If you are creating a ruckus when India is steam rolling (over the dead bodies of the working and toiling masses) towards a 10% GDP growth you need to be silenced. Justice, Law, Democratic rights, Constitutional guarantees are such trifling hurdles that cannot come in the way of a super power and its multinational corporations. So was with Binayak. He was put behind bars in 2007 on frivolous charges of abetting Maoists without any shred of evidence. After two years of a relentless political campaign all over India and internationally, he was granted bail. Had he gagged himself he would have been spared, but no he went around telling his tale and the truth behind operation green hunt, so he was quickly charged with sedition and sentenced for life.
The Will to stand up against oppression is a powerful weapon and so threatening that the State reacts brutally. The bullets can only kill the body; the truth can destroy the ideological hegemony that turns people into willing slaves. But the sacrifices are many. Binayak Sen’s life is evidence to both the power and the sacrifice. We can take a cue and choose to remain silent but in doing so we will not only be bequeathing our future but also the future of generations to come into the hands of a plundering neo liberal capitalist hegemony that is fast destroying our very basis of existence. But we can choose to resist, standing firm and refusing to be cowed down. Only a concerted mass action of resistance and defiance can create a subjective force against capitalism and pave the way for a just socialist society where poverty, exploitation, brutality and greed for profit will become history.
Let us raise our voice and fight together to build the resistance
For the immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen, Narayan Sanyal and Piyush Gupta and quashing of all fraudulent charges against them.
Call the Indian Judicial system’s bluff which allows the plunder of land, livelihoods and natural resources by the global rich and imprison the human rights defenders!
Let us resolve to fight back!
For the cessation of Operation Green Hunt and the immediate withdrawal of all Para military forces (CRPF) from Central India
For the rights of tribals to their lands and forests
Against the plunder of our earth for the profits of MNCs
For our right to dissent and express
Build a genuine mass political alternative
For a democratic socialist world without hegemony and empire
Venkat T
Chennai