Anniversary of an Arrest
By J. Sri Raman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 30 April 2008
May 14, of course, is not September 11. In a fortnight, however, human rights
activists will be observing the anniversary of an event which was a sequel,
in a strange way, to the Twin Towers tragedy.
They will be marking the anniversary of an arrest. On that day in 2007, police
detained Binayak Sen, a physician and rights activist working among a famished
tribal population in one of India's poorer states, on charges of complicity
with terrorism. The charges have not been proven, but Binayak still languishes
in a prison.
He may have remained free, practicing medicine with a social mission among
people outside the pale of modernity and official medicare along with associates
inspired by him, if spectacular tragedy had not struck New York in 2001. If
he had been arrested, too, the rule of law may have rescued him, if the tragedy
had not reduced it to a farce even in places far from American shores.
He has been denied freedom, despite a campaign in India and across countries
for him, because justice is not considered the due of an alleged terrorist or
a supposed accomplice of terrorism. An international award conferred on him
on April 21 has made no impact on authorities, either. They won't let mere awards
of this kind come in the way of their "anti-terrorist" crusade, when
they have not let old laws and liberties do so.
The Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights, conferred on Binayak
by the Washington-based Global Health Council, honors him for his pioneering
health work among mine workers of the mineral-rich but still poverty-stricken
State of Chhattisgarh (named after the "Thirtysix Forts" dotting the
landscape of a classically underdeveloped land). The work took him inevitably
into the world of social therapy, and the award citation also notes Binayak's
role as a leader of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).
It was this role that put the "terrorist" tag on Binayak. And it
was this tag that made possible his arrest and continued detention without trial
for almost a year. The "anti-terrorist" camp had won a license for
lawlessness nearly seven years ago.
The license was issued originally in the form of a Prevention of Terrorism
Act (POTA). This followed the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance or POTO promulgated
in October 2001, a month after 9/11. The POTA was the official New Delhi response
to 9/11 and a Washington diktat in its wake.
Piloting the draconian law in a joint session of both Houses of Parliament
on March 26, 2002, then Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani talked of it as a
post-9/11 imperative. The POTA, he said, would "meet a call made by United
Nations Security Council Resolution No. 1373, passed on September 28. This resolution
said: 'All states shall ensure that any person who participates in the financing,
planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts is brought to justice.'"
The resolution was a full and faithful reflection of the official US wish and
will. The "justice" it mentioned, however, was a blatant denial of
the basic norms of civilized jurisprudence. It was followed by the passage of
laws in several countries that targeted civil liberties and democratic rights
in the name of tackling terrorism. Then Law Minister Arun Jaitley thundered
that India, too, "shall have an anti-terrorism law" and left no doubt
that it would be a lawless law.
The POTA put the onus on the accused to prove his or her innocence. It treated
confessions made to the police (obtained, in public perception, often under
torture) as acceptable evidence. As a result of popular pressure, and following
the defeat of the far-right-led government that promulgated it, the POTA was
repealed in 2004.
But the far right and other forces making political capital of the "anti-terrorist"
offensive have found adequate substitutes for the scrapped law. Binayak was
detained under provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2006
(CSPSA), and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, amended in 2004
to include key aspects of the POTA. A statement by the Global Health Council
says: "Large areas of Chhattisgarh are embroiled in an armed conflict involving
rebels, the State government and law enforcement, and armed civilian militias.
Sen was ... accused of passing notes from a rebel leader he was treating in
jail to someone outside the prison. Sen denies committing any crime and says
his activities in the jail were supervised by prison authorities."
The "rebels," to whom the statement refers, are the armed Maoists,
whom Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government considers "the most serious
threat" to national security today. The "civilian militias" in
the statement are the groups collectively named Salwa Judum (ironically meaning
Peace Campaign), armed by the state government led by Chief Minister Raman Singh
of the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is Binayak's opposition to
the Salwa Judum as a civil liberties activist that, according to his many sympathizers,
has cost him so dearly.
Historian and peace activist Ramachandra Guha, who made a study tour of the
region, says that "the scheme had armed hundreds of local villagers and
given some the elevated title of Special Police Officer (SPO)." He adds:
"While the state claimed Salwa Judum to be a success, other reports suggested
that its activists were a law unto themselves, burning villages deemed insufficiently
sympathetic to them and abusing their women."
Guha, no advocate of an armed revolution at all, followed up his study with
a petition, along with some others, to the Supreme Court of India, questioning
the Salwa Judum's constitutionality. The court has not pronounced its verdict,
but, during the hearing of the case, has voiced disapproval of the practice
of the state arming a section of the population.
A 14-member team of five human rights organizations, including the PUCL, conducted
an investigation between November 28 and December 1, 2005, in some Judum-infested
areas. The team found that the setting up of the militias had led to an escalation
of violence and human rights violations, with tribal women among the worst sufferers
as victims of gang rapes and similar other atrocities.
Writer and peace campaigner Arundhati Roy spoke for many others, when she said
that the Salwa Judum set a trend that could lead to militarization of Indian
society. It was dangerous for Chhattisgarh-based Binayak to articulate similar
dissent.
Earlier this month, it was disclosed that Binayak had been kept in solitary
confinement for about a month, without any access to the outside world, officially
"for his own security." He is no longer kept in such conditions, following
public protests. But, according to a friend, this has meant no major improvement.
When Ilina Sen, Binayak's wife and a leading member of India's Coalition for
Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, visits him, she can talk to him only though a
wire mesh - and she has been given no reason. He is allowed no reading material
except one pro-government newspaper - not even letters.
Binayak's is not the only case of this kind. But the helplessness of the healer,
for whom persons of Noam Chomsky's prominence have spoken up, illustrates the
fragility of human rights in countries and contexts where powers-that-be pretend
to worship at the altar of anti-terrorism.
Chances are slender that Binayak will be able to receive the award in Washington
in person on May 29. The important question is: when will human rights be restored
in nations where these have yet to recover from the setback of 9/11?
A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India, J. Sri Raman is the author of "Flashpoint" (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to Truthout.
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