http://www.binayaksen.net/2009/05/the-cost-of-dissent-in-india/
Binayak Sen and the cost of dissent in India : The Lancet Special Report
Patralekha Chatterjee
Special Report
The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9674, Page 1512, 2 May 2009
Indian doctor, Binayak Sen, continues to pay a steep price for defending the
health and rights of tribal communities in the central India state of
Chattisgarh. Patralekha Chatterjee reports.
Despite worldwide calls for his release, this May, Indian paediatrician and
human rights activist, Binayak Sen, will be spending his second year inside a
jail in Raipur, Chattisgarh.
Worryingly, the health of 59-year-old Sen, winner of the prestigious Jonathan
Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights in 2008, is now deteriorating.
But he has been denied bail and has not yet got permission to seek medical
treatment at a hospital of his choice, Ilina Sen, his wife, told The Lancet in
mid April.Sen’s continued incarceration is also hampering the health work he
started in Chattisgarh. Indian doctors typically dodge rural postings. But Sen,
a graduate from Vellore’s prestigious Christian Medical College, opted to work
in the neglected hinterland, where most Indians still live. Rupantar, a
non-governmental organisation (NGO) founded by Sen and his wife, set up a
weekly clinic in 1997 in a village in central India (now part of Chattisgarh
state) plagued by malaria and malnutrition. Local tribal youths were trained to
become community health workers. Ever since, the clinic has been providing
low-cost medical care to those living
within a 50 km radius and who cannot access health services easily. Today,
however, the health clinic is denied the services of its creator—the doctor,
who once advised the state government on health sector reforms, is now branded
an enemy of the state.Sen was arrested under the Chattisgarh Special Public
Security Act in May, 2007, for suspected links with Maoist rebels, known
locally as Naxalites. But so far, the prosecution has failed to throw up
legally admissible evidence to support the accusations in the charge-sheet.A
visit to the health clinic in Bagrumnala village, a remote tribal backwater in
Dhamtari district in Chattisgarh, offers a glimpse of Sen’s vision and
accomplishments. When the clinic started, there was no electricity in
Bagrumnala, says Ghasia Ram Netam, a health worker with Rupantar, and the first
tribal youth in his village to be trained as a laboratory technician.
High-school-educated Netam can now diagnose a range of common
diseases. Valuable contributions of the Bagrumnala clinic, which Sen visited
every week before his arrest, include weaning tribal people away from quacks,
and prompt diagnosis of diseases such as malaria.Mineral-rich Chattisgarh state
where Sen spent most of his working life was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in
November, 2000. Tribal people known as adivasis or original dwellers make up a
third of the state’s population. Despite constitutional safeguards, they remain
poor and marginalised. Conflicts over land and natural resources are eruptintg
as Chattisgarh seeks to attract corporate investors. Maoist rebels have been
quick to tap into local grievances.Sen’s troubles can be traced to his
criticism of the Salwa Judum, an anti-Naxalite movement, allegedly initiated by
the people of Chattisgarh in 2005, to oppose Maoist violence in the state. “He
had highlighted unlawful killings of adivasis (indigenous people) by the
police, and by Salwa Judum, a
private militia widely held to be sponsored by the state authorities to fight
the guerrillas of the CPI (Maoist)”, says Amnesty International. “Dr Binayak
Sen questioned those policies of the Chattisgarh State, which has led to large
scale displacements of tribal people, their growing impoverishment and
starvation deaths”, notes Indian Doctor in Jail, The Story of Binayak Sen—a
booklet brought out by Doctors in Defense of Dr Binayak Sen—a group of men and
women who personally know Sen and his work. Sen was troubled by the effect of
these displacements on the health of tribal people, the report notes.Sen’s
arrest threatens to cripple the pioneering work of the Bagrumnala health
clinic. Young doctors from Jan Swasthya Sahyog, a community health group in
neighbouring Bilaspur, with whom Sen has been affiliated, are trying to keep
alive the initiative. But the weekly clinic is now a fortnightly affair,
informs Prahlad Sahu, Rupantar’s district
coordinator. Rupantar has also been forced to close its office in Raipur
because no landlord wants to rent out premises to the NGO. Earlier, patients
referred from the Bagrumnala clinic used to come to Raipur for further
treatment. Now, the referral chain is breaking down, says Sen’s wife,
Ilina.Rupantar trained and monitored community health workers in 20 villages in
Dhamtari district, contributing sub-stantially to the state government’s
flagship Mitanin (women health activists) programme—a precursor to the federal
Accredited Social Health Activist initiative, a key component of India’s
National Rural Health Mission. But today, there is an attempt by the district
administration, to undermine the NGO’s efforts. Rupantar is now criticised by
the State Government for deviating from the government’s training
guidelines.Amid the challenges, Rupantar carries on, like its incarcerated
founder.
[The Lancet is arguably the most prestigious and best known of the medical
journals of the world. It is being published since Oct 5, 1823.]
Peace Is Doable
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