Binayak

Slide 1: Dr Binayak Sen: A medical visionary: His life and work for people in Chhattisgarh,& for public health in India.

Slide 3: College Day, Bagayam, late 1960s

Slide 4: Academic qualifications • D.C.H. Pediatrics: 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.

Slide 5: What did such a bright person do after qualifying as a specialist? I. Worked for Tuberculosis patients in rural Hoshangabad district – Friends Rural Centre, Rasulia.

Slide 6: II. Worked towards creating a hospital unparalleled in India and possibly the world.

Slide 7: Dalli Rajhara, District Durg. • Casual workers of the iron ore mines at Dalli Rajhara. • Pathetic living conditions. • No access to healthcare.

Slide 8: • Woman leader Kusinbai died during childbirth on the road to Bhilai after being denied care in Steel plant hospital in Dalli Rajhara.

Slide 9: Shaheed Hospital -Dalli Rajhara • Outcome worker’s determination, and cooperation. Raised Rs. 3 lakhs out of their own daily wages. • Vision of Shankar Guha Niyogi, and doctors like Dr. Binayak, Dr. Kundu, Dr. Jana.

Slide 10: A UNIQUE HOSPITAL IS BORN

Slide 11: Hospital of the workers, by the workers, for…. everybody • Dispensary • 10 bedded hospital in 1983 • 90 bedded hospital in 2004 with Operation theater, laboratory, pharmacy. • 150 km radius • Major emphasis on demystification, rationality, cost reduction and equity.

Slide 12: Shaheed Hospital Of the workers, by the workers for everyone .

Slide 13: 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

Slide 14: III. Worked with under-served village communities to develop programs to improve their health, education and agriculture.

Slide 15: • 1989: Rupantar • Raipur: Nagri Sihawa Block. • People displaced by dam-building in the upper Mahanadi catchment area. • Previous health services practically non-existent.

Slide 16: • Trained, deployed, monitored community health workers in 20 villages. • Provided referral backup for these workers. • Basic medical lab with full-time technician. • Care for a variety of illnesses e.g. Falciparum malaria, tuberculosis.

Slide 17: A people ……

Slide 18: And their doctor……

Slide 20: The first school in Kekrakholi..

Slide 21: Improving yields….

Slide 22: Protecting Chattisgarh’s rich biodiversity

Slide 23: •

Slide 24: Women’s issues

Slide 25: IV. Worked to strengthen primary and secondary health care in Chhattisgarh

Slide 26: • Member , State Advisory Committee on Health Sector Reforms. • Implementation of the Mitanin Programme in 2 blocks of the state.

Slide 27: Mitanin Programme

Slide 30: Chhattisgarh State Drug Formulary

Slide 31: Standard Treatment Guidelines for Medical Officers, Chhattisgarh

Slide 32: V. Worked for provision and protection of human rights of the poor and the marginalised in Chhattisgarh and India.

Slide 33: People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) http://www.pucl.org National Seminar in October 1976 Founder: Jaya Prakash Narayan (during the “National Emergency”) inaugurated by Acharya Kripalani. President: K.G. Kannabiran “An organization free from 6 Vice Presidents political ideologies, so that Binayak Sen (Chhattisgarh) people belonging to various political parties may come Mathew Manakattu (Kerala) together on one platform for Prabhakar Sinha (Bihar) the defence of Civil Liberties Ravi Kiran Jain (UP) and Human Rights.” Yogesh Kamdar (Mumbai) Sudha Ramalingam (TN and • Accepts no money from any Puduseri) funding agency, Indian or foreign.

Slide 34: 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.

Slide 35: • 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.

Slide 36: 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 in the magazine FRONTLINE, Volume 23 - Issue 05 :: Mar. 11 - 24, 2006)

Slide 37: What was Binayak Sen doing in Chattisgarh,for the people of Chhattisgarh, for 30 years? • Building hospitals 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.

Slide 38: 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. …

Slide 39: • What did he get in return?

Slide 40: From his college in 2004 The Paul Harrison Award for outstanding contribution to health care in rural areas.

Slide 41: Paul Harrison Award CITATION

Slide 42: From the Government of Chhattisgarh in 2007 • Arrest under the Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005

Slide 43: May 14, 2007: Dr. Binayak Sen Arrested in Chhattisgarh Under ‘Public Security Act’ WHY ??!!

Slide 44: 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

Slide 45: • With democratic institutions • Spoke against violence. • Never committed a single unlawful act.

Slide 46: 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.

Slide 47: 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.

Slide 48: 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.

Slide 49: 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……….

Slide 50: http://home.cmcvellore.ac.in/petition/petitionpage1.html Honourable President of India Online Petition Started at CMC Honourable Prime Minister of India President, National Human Rights Commission Honourable Governor, Chhattisgarh s reSecretary of atu Subject: Safety and liberty of Dr. Binayak Sen, General the Chhattisgarh PUCL and Vice-President n the National PUCL ig of who has been 00 s imprisoned. 2,0 te an on behalfa a very respected and beloved old th This letter is to request your good offices to d of Respected Sirs, ore M 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….

Slide 51: 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.

Slide 52:   Human rights defender detained amid harassment of adivasi indigenous rights activists Amnesty 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.  About Amnesty International 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  About Amnesty International India 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  Resources & Links 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  Volunteers & Internships rights defenders in the state. 

Slide 53: Support Pours In For Dr. Binayak Sen

Slide 54: http://savebinayak.freeforums.org/portal.php An online community dedicated to the Save Binayak Campaign

Slide 55: Prominent Citizens Call for Binayak’s Release Noam Chomsky Justice Sachar Irfan Habib Arundhati Roy Medha Patkar

Slide 56: Prominent Citizens Call for Binayak’s Release Habib Tanvir Girish Karnad Shyam Benegal Anand Patwardhan Professor Prabhat Patnaik Romila Thapar Dr. B. Ekbal

Slide 57: The Manchester of South India Demonstration in Coimbatore

Slide 58: Wide Media Coverage • • NDTV Tehelka • • Times of India Countercurrents • • The Hindu CNN/IBN • • Frontline Deshbandhu (Hindi) • • Outlook Dinakaran (Tamil) • • Deccan Herald News International (Pakistan) • • Economic & Political Weekly Khaleej Times (Pakistan) • • MRZine Netherlands Radio Worldwide • • Chennai Vision Truthout (USA) • • Economic Times Reuters TV

Slide 59: Dinakaran Daily News (Vellore district), May 23, 2007

Slide 62: Presumed Guilty

Slide 63: 9 June 2007 Vol 334, No 7605 p 1184-1185 Indian doctor held under controversial antiterrorism law Owen Dyer (London) 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. Writer Arundhati Roy attends a rally for Binayak Sen

Slide 64: 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

Slide 65: First they came for the “First They Came” 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