http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2011061450121300.htm&date=2011/06/14/&prd=br&;
*Date:14/06/2011* * * *The mission of Binayak Sen* J. SRI RAMAN Binayak certainly deserved a better introduction to the public than what has been provided by the media *A DOCTOR TO DEFEND* - The Binayak Sen Story: Minnie Vaid; Pub. by Rajpal and Sons, Kashmere Gate, Delhi-110006. Rs. 350. Binayak Sen is no public figure of the kind who hit the headlines frequently, which he did over the past few months. He is neither a celebrity from the celluloid or sporting world. Nor is he a politician with a following large enough to provide grist to the media mills. He is a physician who helped to highlight festering sores in the body politic that needed immediate healing. A medical missionary with a message focussed on the afflictions of the large but less noticed segment of the population. Binayak certainly deserved a better introduction to the public than what has been provided by the media. So did the issues sought to be raised by him. But they were, regrettably, sidelined by all the debate over his detention and trial. The book under review may not qualify as a complete corrective, but it surely merits welcome as a significant effort in that direction. Social struggle Minnie Vaid's is an attempt to bring alive the social struggle with which Binayak identified himself, and she has partially succeeded in it. That she is a document-maker shows in the way she describes the cycle-rickshaw tempo of life in Chhattisgarh, which Binayak made his home. The narrative begins with Vaid's meeting with the Sens — Binayak and his brave, loyal wife, Ilina, a prominent peace activist in her own right. Her experience of that encounter in Raipur is probably shared by others. Many have seen him first in photographs — looking from behind the window-mesh of a police van, sporting a clenched-fist salute, and smiling, with the face framed in a flame-like beard. To some, he resembled the Christ, while some others saw him as a crimson-red rebel. The real Binayak, however, is too reserved and self-effacing for the rarefied or radical image. Binayak is not sorry at all that he sported no halo. As he told the author: “We are at a particular historical juncture and large populations are involved in that — individuals do not make history.” Influence The book devotes considerable space to the individuals who influenced Binayak and to those whom he influenced. In the first category are his old friends at the Christian Medical College Hospital in Vellore (Tamil Nadu). A major source of influence on him, however, was ‘Shaheed' Shankar Guha Niyogi, the trade unionist and teacher of a transformational ideology. It was at his ‘Shaheed Hospital' in Dalli Rajhara that Binayak took up equitable medical care as a cause to work for. The essay on “ethical practice of medicine” was to lead him to issues of social development and disparities. Binayak's family, too, has had a sustained, protective influence on him. Besides Ilina, there is Pranhita, his elder daughter, with whom Vaid strikes early rapport because the young woman is also an aspiring film-maker, placing her camera at the service of the ‘Free Binayak Campaign'. Younger daughter Aparajita says wistfully: “...I would like to picture [my parents] reading books in a room with dogs around, music on, Ma drinking ‘chai' in a large mug.” Among the persons who were influenced by Binayak are the “feisty” unionist and lawyer, Sudha Bhardwaj of Bilaspur, and Ghasiya Ram of Ganyari, who follows in the footsteps of Binayak in treating as well as feeding sick children of the region. The author also meets Himanshu Kumar in Dantewada, which has seen major episodes of Maoist-state conflict. Maybe, the book does not present Binayak's message cogently. But it does bring it out piecemeal. For the mainstream media, the core issue in the Binayak debate following his conviction on the charge of sedition (in December 2010) related to the outmoded character of the sedition law. The socio-economic factors, which — as Binayak Sen argued — are responsible for the state keeping such anachronistic laws alive, failed to receive serious attention. Binayak tells the author “how the thin, starved bodies tell their own stories of neglect and despair, of deprivation and poverty.” To him, Salwa Judum was, as quoted by Himanshu, “…a way for corporate industrialists, corporate-funded, corporate-guided big-shots to get land vacated for mining purposes.” Personal glimpses >From the few personal glimpses Vaid provides, one learns of the special fondness Binayak had for a certain tune from the Bollywood blockbuster Sholay. His CMC (Christian Medical College) friends remember him as a “noisy” student who once played a female role in a comical play called “The Amorous Prawn.” Where his younger daughter remembers him beating her didi (elder sister) while teaching her mathematics, Binayak is least recognisable. As for Binayak's life mission and fight against socially oppressive forces, it is inexorably on course. The Supreme Court's strong remarks, while granting him bail, against the lower court's verdict convicting him for sedition, have made little difference to Binayak's detractors who continue to go after him as single-mindedly as ever. Vaid recalls Binayak humming American blues singer Mance Lipscomb's lines: “I asked my Captain/what time of day,/Captain just looked at his watch/and then he walked away.” There is a long, long way to go before the campaign of Binayak's initiation could be carried to a pro-people conclusion. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
