Binayak Sen’s wife to collect his award

Ilina Sen says it’s been difficult to cope since her activist husband was  jailed. But friends and civil liberties groups have helped

MUMBAI: If Ilina Sen is all smiles, it could be because she has just got a visa to America to collect an award that is being given to her husband Binayak Sen — the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights. The reason her husband can’t be at the ceremony in Washington DC on May 29 is that for the past year Sen has been in a jail in Chhatisgarh.

“I wasn’t sure about the visa, but the US Consul General was very sympathetic,” a relieved Sen, who is in Mumbai now, told DNA. She will be travelling next week with her two young daughters. Although the circumstances of Binayak Sen’s arrest have compelled 22 Nobel Laureates to write to the government of India to free him, apart from some hectic civil liberties activity in India in the world, large parts of urban India seem unaware of him or the problem.

The reason is not far to seek. The government of Chhatisgarh has presented Sen as a Naxalite supporter — but without any evidence or acknowledgment of the basic rules of jurisprudence.

Says Ilina Sen: “Both Binayak and I have spoken against violence. But the crux of the matter in these areas is underdevelopment and the violence of underdevelopment. In 60 years of Independence, we have not managed to give Adivasis food or livelihood and now their lands are being taken away.”

Who are the Naxalites, she asks, but these Adivasis? “There are no outsiders — these are people fighting for their basic needs and rights.”

Her husband, who “condemns violence and is concerned that peace must be restored”, was picked up soon after he spoke against Salwa Judum, the government-sponsored civil militia which has been severely condemned not just by human rights groups but also by an expert group appointed by the Planning Commission and by a bench of the Supreme Court. However, the current BJP political dispensation in Chhatisgarh that is backing the Salwa Judum has refused to disband it. “There are segments of the UPA which have been sympathetic,” says Sen, “and 11 MPs even raised the question in Parliament.” The media has been as rabid in Chhatisgarh as the government has been draconian, she says.

The Sens have worked for 25 years in tribal areas of Chhatisgarh. “It was love at first sight for me. I was attracted by the culture and the women. They are strong women there. But that way of life is being destroyed. Problems like dowry, which never existed, have entered. If the mainstream has to come here, why do we have to accept a third-rate mainstream?”

Binayak is a medical doctor and Ilina teaches gender studies. They represent the many urban Indians who have dedicated their lives to the ‘other India’. Since theirs is not a story of shining India, they are often perceived as a threat. Sen points out that the Naxal issue is borne out of desperation and poverty and all government schemes are usually both full of corruption and badly implemented.

Meanwhile, she says, “I’m coping very badly. It’s been emotional and tough but our friends have helped tremendously.” While the chargesheet filed against Binayak seems very flimsy, Ilina is unsure whether to hope for his release or not. As for the various internet and other support groups, she smiles a bit wryly, “I’m not sure whether politicians relate to online causes.”

b_ranjona@dnaindia.net