Dr Binayak Sen: the 'Maoist' who wants to stay out of jail

Dr Binayak Sen has been many things over the years; academician, pediatrician, public health specialist, human rights activist and according to a Chattisgarh court, a Maoist and traitor. But who really is Binayak Sen? An ordinary man who, like everyone else wants to live with his family and ‘stay away from jail’. “My ambition is to spend my remaining years with my wife, my two daughters and the old people in my family for all long as I can,” Sen said in an interview to the Businesss Standard today. Sen started his academic career at Christian Medical College, Vellore, doing his MBBS and later, an MD in Pediatrics. He then went on to join the the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, as a faculty member. [caption id=“attachment_324499” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”]  [/caption] Later, Sen quit his job at JNU and joined Medico Friends Circle, founded by doctors of Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini, a youth outfit part of Narayan Sanyal’s movement. He then moved to Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh, working in a community based rural health centre focusing on tuberculosis. Dr Sen, a brilliant medical student shunned what could have been a lucrative career to focus on healthcare in the hinterland and human rights. In 1981, he joined the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Committee and served as its General Secretary for five years. His work was vast in scope, covering fake encounters, custodial deaths, hunger deaths, malnutrition, and dysentery. In the late eighties he moved to Raipur, developing models of primary health care in Chhattisgarh. Dr Sen and his wife, Dr Ilina Sen, then went on to create ‘Rupantar’, an NGO which trains, deploys and monitors community health workers spread across 20 villages. Rupantar then branched out to cover alcohol abuse, violence against women and food security. Dr Sen’s wife has braved the time when Dr Sen was arrested. Sen spent a little over two years in jail on charges of acting as a courier between Sanyal, a Naxal leader, and businessman Piyush Guha. He was also accused of being connected with the CPI (Maoists), the political party representing the Naxal movement. When Ilina Sen, Dr Sen’s wife is asked if she had a hard time then, she doesn’t deny it. She says, “Yes. What else do you expect?” After rumours of Salwa Judum started in 2005, the PUCL decided that it was too big to take up alone and went into south Bastar with a platform of human rights organisations. Sen’s fact finding team, was one of the first few to study and highlight the excesses and dangers posed by the Salwa Judum, instantly bringing him under the state government’s scanner. Did Sen had any communication with the CPI (Maoists) during the  investigations? Sen says, “No.” Sen is still a convict in the eyes of Indian law. The final verdict is still pending in Sen’s case, including charges of sedition, which will be carried forward in the High Court of Chhattisgarh. Sen believes that India’s biggest internal internal security threat is  about justice and equality and he’s not stopped fighting. But for now, the activist is taking one day at a time. All he wants now, is to live in peace. “For a person who’s been in jail for any amount of time, staying out of jail is not a minor matter. It’s an important thing,” he says. Read the complete interview with  Business Standard here.