Dr Binayak Sen: A medical visionary:

His life and work for people in Chhattisgarh,& for public health in

India.

College Day, Bagayam, late 1960s

Academic qualifications

• M.B.B.S. and D.C.H. : Christian Medical College, Vellore.

• M.D. Pediatrics: Christian Medical College, Vellore.

• One of the top students of the college.

• Winner of IDPL National Award for best essay on medical education.

Binayak’s M.D. Thesis was on

• MARASMUS AND MALNUTRITION IN CHILDREN

• He began to get involved in the issues of hunger, poverty and social inequity.

What did such a bright person do after qualifying as a specialist?

I. Taught in the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health of Jawaharlal Nehru University for two years.

II.Worked for Tuberculosis patients in rural Hoshangabad district – Friends Rural Centre, Rasulia.

III. Worked in a workers’ health movement and towards creating a hospital unparalleled in India and possibly the world.

Dalli Rajhara, District Durg.

• Contractual workers of the iron ore mines of Bhilai Steel Plant at Dalli Rajhara.

• Pathetic living conditions.

• No access to healthcare.

In late seventies

• Chhattishgarh Mines Shramik Sangh vice-president Kusumbai died during childbirth in the Steel plant hospital in Dalli Rajhara being neglected by the doctors and nurses.

• Workers vowed to build a maternity home their own.

Safai Andolan

• In 1980 the workers struggled forcing the Steel Plant management to make arrangements for waste disposal in the slums.

• Dalli-Rajhara came to limelight when Com. Shankar Guha Niyogi was arrested under MISA for the anti-mechanisation struggle.

• Doctors got attracted towards the movement.

Shaheed Hospital -Dalli Rajhara

• A program of the toilers by the toilers.• No external funding, constructed by the

workers from contribution from their wages.• Workers participate in decision making and

day to day functioning.• Vision of Shankar Guha Niyogi, and doctors

like Dr. Binayak Sen, Dr. Asis Kumar Kundu, Dr. Saibal Jana.

A UNIQUE HOSPITAL IS BORN

Hospital of the toilers, by the toilers, for…. everybody

• Shaheed Dispensary in 1982

• 15 bedded hospital in 1983

• 50 bedded hospital in 1989 with Operation theater, laboratory, pharmacy.

• Served people of 150 km radius

• Major emphasis on demystification of medicines rational therapy, cost reduction and equity.

Shaheed HospitalOf the toilers, by the toilers for

everyone .

Observations by a Doctor on Binayak in Shaheed Hospital

“I met Dr Sen first in August 1984. He was examining a child in the verandah of the Shaheed Hospital when the child passed stools. Binayak went and fetched a mop and cleaned up the mess.

“He told me that he was as qualified as anybody else to handle a mop- so why not?

“I cannot understand how that quiet and polite gentleman can be considered seditious.?”

Prabir Chatterji, CMC post-graduate

IV. Worked with under-served village communities to develop programs to improve their health, education and agriculture.

• 1994: Rupantar

• Raipur: Nagri Sihawa Block, Bagrumnala Vill.

• People displaced by dam-building in the upper Mahanadi catchment area.

• Previous health services practically non-existent.

• Trained, deployed, monitored community health workers in 20 villages.

• Provided referral backup for these workers.

• Basic medical lab with locally trained technician.

• Care for a variety of illnesses e.g. Falciparum malaria, tuberculosis.

A people ……

And their doctor……

The first school in Kekrakholi..

Improving yields….

Protecting Chattisgarh’s rich biodiversity

•

Women’s issues

IV. Worked to strengthen primary and secondary health care in Chhattisgarh

• Member , State Advisory Committee on

Health Sector Reforms.

• Implementation of the Mitanin Programme

in 2 blocks of the state.

Mitanin Programme

Chhattisgarh State Drug Formulary

Standard Treatment Guidelines for Medical Officers, Chhattisgarh

V. Worked for provision and protection of human rights of the poor and the marginalised in Chhattisgarh and India.

Initiated to human rights movement when he was a member of P.U.C.L. team investigating police firing of workers of Rajnandgaon B.N.C.Mills in 1984.

People’s Union for Civil Liberties(PUCL) http://www.pucl.org

National Seminar in October 1976 (during the “National Emergency”) inaugurated by Acharya Kripalani.

“An organization free from political ideologies, so that people belonging to various political parties may come together on one platform for the defence of Civil Liberties and Human Rights.”

• Accepts no money from any funding agency, Indian or foreign.

Founder: Jaya Prakash Narayan

President: K.G. Kannabiran

6 Vice Presidents Binayak Sen (Chhattisgarh)Mathew Manakattu (Kerala)Prabhakar Sinha (Bihar)Ravi Kiran Jain (UP)Yogesh Kamdar (Mumbai)Sudha Ramalingam (TN and

Puduseri)

Protecting Human Rights in Chhattisgarh

• Right to Food campaign: Binayak is on Executive committee for Right to Food petition.

• Chhattisgarh Bio-diversity Security Forum: Protest against Syngenta.

• Probes into custodial death: Supela episode.

• Probes into land acquisitions by corporates.

• Legal aid to undertrials.

• Investigations into the human rights issues related to the crisis in Bastar.

• Protests against the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act.

Frontline, March 2006

• "These senseless killings are unfortunate and must stop.

• Both sides should sit down to talk and find a way to peace"

said Binayak Sen, a PUCL activist in Raipur

(source: PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. Writing inthe magazine FRONTLINE, Volume 23 - Issue 05 :: Mar. 11 - 24, 2006)

What was Binayak Sen doing in Chattisgarh,for the people of Chhattisgarh, for 30 years?

• Building hospital still being successfully run by mine & factory workers.

• Training people in villages to look after the health of their own communities.

• Running free clinics in areas where medical facilities are not available.

• Providing education to tribal children.

What was Binayak Sen doing in Chattisgarh,for the people of Chhattisgarh, for 30 years?

• Improving agriculture, protecting biodiversity.

• Helping, advising, contributing to the State Government’s Community Health Programmes.

• Defending the rights of citizens, especially the poor and the marginalised.

• Ensuring proper treatment of under-trial prisoners. …

•What did he get in return?

From his college in 2004

The Paul Harrison Award for outstanding contribution to health care in rural areas.

• R.R. Khaitan Award from Indian Academy of Social Sciences in 2007.

• Jonathan Mann Award from Global Health Council.

Dr. Sen could not take these awards in person.

Paul Harrison AwardCITATION

From the Government of Chhattisgarh in 2007

• Arrest under the Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005

May 14, 2007: Dr. Binayak Sen Arrested in Chhattisgarh

Under ‘Public Security Act’

WHY ??!!

Binayak Sen • Worked constructively and untiringly for

the poor living in some of the most difficult regions of the country.

• Worked in the public domain, and with constructive engagement with the Government

• With democratic institutions

• Spoke against violence.

• Never committed a single unlawful act.

Binayak Sen

• Raised not only the issue of health as a basic human right.

• But also ……

• The protection of human rights as a critical determinant of the health of a people.

Binayak raised issues without fear or favor …

• Against the Congress Government : The protection of land and livelihood rights of tribals to be displaced by the Steel plant at Nagarnar

• Against the BJP Government : For human rights violations in the ongoing Salwa Judum campaign in Dantewada.

What is the price to be paid for voicing dissent peacefully and raising issues

democratically in a free country ?

• Detention under an Act which considers any kind of dissent, or disobedience, even unlinked with any violence as an Unlawful activity.

• General “tendency” to disobedience can be punished. No overt act is necessary.

The protests against Binayak Sen’s arrest.

Widespread and continuing…….

Numerous organisations,

Hundreds of leading citizens, intellectuals, and medical academics.

Thousands of doctors, medical students, common people in chattisgarh,

Protests in tens of Indian cities and across the world……….

Honourable President of India Honourable Prime Minister of IndiaPresident, National Human Rights CommissionHonourable Governor, Chhattisgarh

Subject: Safety and liberty of Dr. Binayak Sen, General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh PUCL and Vice-President of the National PUCL

who has been imprisoned.

Respected Sirs,This letter is to request your good offices on behalf of a very respected and beloved old student of Christian Medical College, Vellore who has been imprisoned this afternoon (May 14, 2007) at Bilaspur for activities in defense of the rights and liberties of tribal people in Chhattisgarh.

His name is Binayak Sen. He had a distinguished academic career in Vellore, graduating in Medicine and later acquiring an M.D. in Paediatrics. From 1976 to 1978, he was a faculty member at the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He left his academic appointment to work in a community based rural health centre in Hoshangabad district of M.P. focusing on problems of tuberculosis….

http://home.cmcvellore.ac.in/petition/petitionpage1.html

More than 2,000 signatures

to date

Online Petition Started at CMC

ORGANIZATIONS Supporting Binayak• People’s Union for Civil Liberties

• Christian Medical College, Vellore• Medico Friends Circle • Jan Swasthya Abhiyan

• National Alliance of People’s Movements • People’s Union for Democratic Rights

• All India Drug Action Network • Amnesty International

• International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organizations.

 

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Human rights defender detained amid harassment of adivasi indigenous rights activistsAmnesty International is concerned over the apparently arbitrary arrest and detention of Dr. Binayak Sen, a human rights defender at Raipur in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, and the police harassment of two other human rights defenders in the state. Dr. Sen is the general secretary of the Chhattisgarh unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, one of India’s foremost human rights organizations, and has been instrumental in working on access to health for adivasi communities in the state. On 14 May 2007, he was detained at the Tarbahar Police Station, Bilaspur district, when he was returning from Kolkotta to Raipur. On May 15, he was lodged in Raipur prison. Police officials later sealed his residence and searched his clinic. His organic farm in a nearby village was also searched. Reports say Dr. Sen has been detained under provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2006 (CSPSA), and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967), which was amended in 2004 to include key aspects of the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA), 2002. The POTA was repealed in 2004 following widespread criticism of abuse and human rights violations. The CSPSA and UAPA allow for arbitrary detention of persons suspected of belonging to an unlawful organization or participating in its activities or giving protection to any member of such an organization. The PUCL has stated that, apart from Dr. Sen, two other PUCL members, Rashmi Dwivedi and Gautam Bandopadhyay, have been facing harassment and threats of arrest from the police. The three have been actively protecting the rights of adivasis (indigenous communities) in the face of escalating violence in Chattisgarh between armed Maoists and Salwa Judum, an armed anti-Maoist campaign widely regarded as sponsored by the state government. They have been instrumental in bringing to light unlawful killings of advisis , sexual assault of adivasi women and disappearances of adivasi youth. The latest instance was the unlawful killing of seven adivisis in Santoshpur village in Bastar-Dantewada area on 31 March. While the state police had earlier claimed that those killed were Maoists, the state government recently ordered an inquiry into the killings after which the bodies have been exhumed last week. The PUCL has stated that police allege that Dr. Sen had passed letters from Narayan Sanyal, a detained leader of the banned CPI (Maoist) who he had met in the Raipur jail last month, to Piyush Guha an alleged member of CPI (Maoist) under detention since 1 May. Dr. Sen, at the time of his arrest, told the media that this charge had no basis since the prison authorities were present during for all the meeting with Narayan Sanyal.Amnesty International urges the Government of Chhattisgarh to immediately release Dr. Sen unless he is charged with a recognizable criminal offence and take urgent steps to end the harassment of the other human rights defenders in the state.

Support Pours In For Dr. Binayak Sen

http://savebinayak.freeforums.org/portal.phpAn online community dedicated to the

Save Binayak Campaign

Prominent Citizens Call for Binayak’s Release

Noam Chomsky

Justice Sachar

Irfan Habib

Arundhati Roy

Medha Patkar

Prominent Citizens Call for Binayak’s ReleaseHabib Tanvir

Girish Karnad

Shyam Benegal

Anand Patwardhan

Professor Prabhat Patnaik

Romila Thapar

Dr. B. Ekbal

Demonstration in Coimbatore The Manchester of South India

Wide Media Coverage• NDTV• Times of India• The Hindu• Frontline• Outlook• Deccan Herald• Economic & Political Weekly• MRZine• Chennai Vision• Economic Times

• Tehelka• Countercurrents• CNN/IBN• Deshbandhu (Hindi)• Dinakaran (Tamil)• News International (Pakistan)• Khaleej Times (Pakistan)• Netherlands Radio Worldwide• Truthout (USA)• Reuters TV

Dinakaran Daily News (Vellore district), May 23, 2007

Presumed Guilty

Owen Dyer (London)

Indian doctor held under controversial antiterrorism law

9 June 2007

Vol 334, No 7605

p 1184-1185

Writer Arundhati Roy attends a rally for Binayak Sen

Binayak Sen, a noted civil rights activist, was arrested on 14 May .....

Dr Sen worked on behalf of indigenous communities for 30 years. He helped to found a cooperative hospital for mine workers, the Shaheed hospital, and played a big part in evolving a statewide programme of training community health workers.

Amidst nation-wide and international protest

Dr. Sen was granted bail by a vacation bench of the Supreme Court on May 20 , 2009.

On December 24, 2010 the district sessions court of Raipur sentenced Binayak to life imprisonment. ,

When I give food to the

poor, they call me a

saint.

When I ask why the poor

have no food, they call

me a Communist.

- Dom Helder Pessoa

Camara, former Roman Catholic

archbishop of Olinda and Recife,

Brazil

“First They Came”

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was nobody left to speak up.

- Pastor Martin Niemoller,

1892-1984

SPEAK UP

RESIST

THE SILENT EMERGENCY