Release of Dr. Binayak Sen - A Step towards the Right to Democratic Dissent
The Supreme Court today granted bail to Dr. Binayak Sen. Binayak was arrested by the government of Chhattisgarh on the 14 May 2007 and charged under sections of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA), 2005, as well as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967, and sections of the Indian Penal Code for his alleged links with Maoists. The bail was granted on a personal bond by a vacation bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Deepak Verma.
This has been a victory for all the human and democratic rights organizations and other people’s movements that have been consistently struggling and demanding for his release. NTUI welcomes this verdict of the apex court but it has to be kept in mind that this has come after one rejection of bail application by the same in a previous occasion and no objective condition has changed since then. The worldwide campaign for his release along with the sustained public exposure had put to question the legitimacy of the judiciary. It is a moment of relief that this stigma has been averted.
The two year long campaign for the release of Dr. Sen has shown the enormity of the capacity required of social and political forces in order to defend human rights of activists in areas of strife and armed conflict. It shows the long path that the society needs to traverse to deepen the ideology of Human Rights in the judiciary and protect it from the prejudices of the dominant political opinion and the exigencies of the state. There are many more political prisoners who still remain incarcerated for want of a strong and independent human rights framework within the judiciary.
This struggle had also witnessed the much needed consolidation of a large number of democratic and human rights organizations, people’s movements, trade unions, social, political and cultural activists and individuals on a single platform to not only demand Dr. Sen’s release but also to demand for the repeal of anti-terror laws such as the CSPSA,UAPA. Binayak’s arrest was symptomatic of larger efforts by the state to curb all forms of democratic dissent. The past decade has seen the steady acceleration of state-sanctioned repression that functions to abolish any space for reasoned debate. Nowhere is this fact clearer than in the mineral rich belt of Central India, where the process of displacement for ‘industrialisation’ has been particularly violent and anti-democratic.
This consolidation and convergence of the efforts of people’s organizations culminated in the peaceful ‘Raipur Satyagraha for Binayak’ that was launched in Raipur on the 16 March 2009. Social and political cultural activists and individuals across the country have joined this Satyagraha every Monday since then and courted arrest in Raipur. The ten satyagrahas have seen activists like Sandeep Pandey, Medha Patkar, Arundhati Roy, Amar Kanwar join with trade unions and workers’ organizations like Trade Union Solidarity Committee (Mumbai), Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samiti (West Bengal), Pragatisheel Cement Shramik Sangh (Chattisgarh), Jan Adharit Engineering Mazdoor Union (Chattisgarh), Mehnatkash Aavas Adhikar Sangathan (Chattisgarh), Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, National Forum for Forest People and Forest Workers (Bilaspur), Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Barwani, Madhya Pradesh) along with Bhopal gas tragedy survivors in addition to senior leaders of the NTUI to court arrest.
On the surface, the injustices inflicted on Dr. Binayak Sen reveal the very face of the state he has spent his activist life exposing. At a deeper level, it brings to light the various machinations by which the state has been subverting democratic principles. Laws like CSPSA function almost exclusively to provide a veneer of legality to gross exhibitions of force by those in power. What Dr. Sen’s arrest represents however, is not the mere crushing of activities that are critical of the state. It represents something more sinister: that all critique and questioning of the state can be deemed subversive and anti-national. That all space for democratic dissent can be usurped by the state in the name of ‘Public Security.’ The way the state and the court has treated Binayak shows that neither has any interest in returning his offer of critical engagement with anything other than suppression.
The NTUI views that the shift of the Release Binayak Campaign from building public opinion to political action of mass demonstration, continuous civil disobedience movement in Raipur and a countrywide action culminating in the simultaneous demonstrations on the second year of incarceration of Dr. Sen on 14 May 2009 as a significant move towards providing the political thrust. The lesson it draws from this experience is the need to overcome the fragmentation and local and sectional nature of the human rights movement in India.
NTUI believes that there is a need to consolidate and move towards a countrywide federation of human rights organisation that has enough capacity and centralisation to monitor and assess the human rights situation in the country and build national focus and political thrust. Such a framework can provide the space to integrate the political strength of national mass organisations like NTUI in creating a robust and strong line of defence for human rights and for human rights defenders.
Stop State Repression of Human Rights Defenders
25 May 2009