Hum Sab Binayak ….

After years of jail, unlawful delay in grant of bail, a sustained campaign in the country and abroad, the system reluctantly granted Dr. Binayak Sen bail. But he was not free for long – the Raipur Sessions Court in Chhattisgarh’s capital city chose to heed the farcical and obviously fabricated Chhattisgarh police charges against Binayak Sen and sentenced him to life imprisonment under a handful of draconian laws including the colonial sedition law. While Binayak still awaits justice and freedom, however, it is true that finally, after so many years of struggle, he stands vindicated for his social commitment and courage in the court of public opinion. In that people’s court, it the Chhattisgarh Government, the Central Government and the Indian judiciary that stand in the dock. It is indeed a victory of the people’s movement that leading newspapers, magazines and news channels, as well as some parties and intellectuals otherwise supportive of Green Hunt, have finally broken their silence and ambivalence and have been forced to critique the Raipur Sessions Court verdict in the Binayak case.

Binayak’s case has given the entire country a close look at what passes for police investigation and judicial process in India, especially in cases involving marginalised people, minorities and political activists and dissenters. Binayak has come to represent all those thousands of people today who are routinely framed in false cases on fabricated evidence, tortured in police custody and convicted in political judgements. In a way, each of us who dares to challenge government policies and voice our dissent is a potential Binayak – We are all Binayak… Binayak Sens all over the country are targeted because they are a threat to the system run by the Corporate-Radia-government-media nexus. We have witnessed in the Radia tapes how corporate powers have ruling class politicians in their pockets, how they rig the media and even courts to suit them. In the landmark Binayak Sen case, the Radias have not succeeded – we must use this partial victory of people’s struggles to throw light on all the other Binayaks who are struggling for a better society and better world.

The Many Binayaks….

This all-out assault on dissent, trampling democracy and rights underfoot is not restricted only to the judicial process. Extra-judicial executions (otherwise called ‘encounters’) are another common tool of ‘governance’ and policing in India.

Encounters in Orissa : Recently, even as Union home minister P Chidambaram holding meeting with DGPs of nine ‘Maoist-affected’ states in New Delhi, the Odisha police gleefully claimed a major victory: the ‘encounter’ killing of a large number ‘Maoists’ at key anti-mining and anti-land-grab struggle areas of Kalinganagar, Rayagada and Gandhamardhan hills. At Kalinganagar, newspapers reported without any question that the killed ‘Maoists’ included 3 women including a 12-year-old girl, Janga. Can we recall the Radia tapes where Niira Radia assured Vir Sanghvi with ‘hand on her heart’ that ‘we are fighting Maoists in Kalinganagar’? The Kalinganagar struggle is well known to be a mass movement of adivasis devoid of any Maoist leadership. At Gandhamardhan, two men killed and branded as ‘Naxals’ have been identified by villagers as local BJP members who were active in the anti-mining struggle, and in recent times had been especially active against Vedanta’s plans to shift its mining operation to Gandhamardhan after being denied permission at Niyamgiri. A prominent Niyamgiri activist, Lenju, who in the Frontline (June 5-18 2010) had predicted that he would be branded a Maoist and killed, is also suspected to have been killed in the recent spate of ‘encounters’. These ‘encounters’ raise the serious doubt that the police is now paving the way for the corporates by massacring activists of people’s movements and, with the help of the Radia-run media, branding them as ‘Maoists.’ After this series of encounters, on cue,Vedanta has announced its plans to challenge its expulsion from Niyamgiri, and Tata has released a statement promising to turn Kalinganagar into Jamshedpur.

When the adivasis had pushed Vedanta out of Niyamgiri, Rahul Gandhi had gone there to declare that ‘I will be a soldier in Delhi for adivasis of Odisha.’ Why is the brave soldier silent now when 12-year-old girls are being gunned down in Odisha as ‘Maoists’? Why does he not at least ask for an enquiry into each of these encounters, as according to the NHRC directives?

In Chhattisgarh itself, there are many adivasi activists – including Gandhian and CPI acvtisists – who have been branded as ‘Maoists’ and jailed. In West Bengal, we can all remember the young girl (claimed to be a Maoist killed in an ‘encounter’) who was carried by CRPF personnel tied to a pole like a hunted animal.

Targeting of CPI(ML): Meanwhile mass movements and dissenting political forces of every description are being branded as ‘Maoists’ in order to subject them to harassment and crackdown. A small example is when the Odisha unit of CPI(ML) Liberation issued a statement condemning Binayak Sen’s conviction, the party office was raided by a large number of policemen the very next morning. When the party Secretary asked the reason for this forced intrusion into the office, he was told by a senior police official, “Why did you issue a statement on Binayak?”

In another recent incident in Gazipur district of UP, the police fired on unarmed people protesting against the arrest of a youth from the Bind community on false charges of theft. People reacted by beating up the police and an SI lost his life. The ADG then issued a fabricated story (obediently reproduced in several national newspapers and channels) that CPI(ML) Liberation, which he alleged to be a ‘Maoist’ group (!!!), had led a pre-planned attack armed with guns on the thana under the banner of another party, the Shoshit Samaj Dal! The amazing thing was neither CPI(ML) nor the Shoshit Samaj Dal had any protest programme on that date. Further the ADG had claimed that the SI was shot dead and even displayed spent bullets to ‘prove’ it; but the autopsy revealed no bullet injuries! Yet the media carried the police-inspired fiction as through it were fact – and even after the Commissioner of Police was forced to declare the ADG’s version to be wrong, never uttered even a word of apology for peddling such lies.

All over the country, the works of Marx, Mao and even Bhagat Singh are being declared ‘seditious’. The PM continues to declare ‘left extremism’ to be the ‘greatest threat’ to the country while remaining silent on saffron terror. After all, saffron terror is not a threat to the system; rather it is deeply entrenched in the system and enjoys the backing of army officers, bureaucrats, as well as national parties like the BJP. But people movements have to be branded as ‘extremist’ and suppressed to serve the Tatas, Ambanis and Radias…

To challenge the witch-hunt of dissenting voices and salute the courage of Binayak Sen and others like him, let us declare ‘Hum Sab Binayak’!