Bail for Dr. Binayak

Having remained eclipsed from news for the whole day yesterday, today's newspaper brought definite cheers.  Dr. Binayak Sen has finally been granted bail by the Supreme Court after a period of 2 years during which hoards of protest marches, petitions, discussions and innumerable newspaper articles demanding his bail did the rounds in the country. While many are not aware of who Dr. Binayak Sen is, but among the civil society groups his had become a name that spelled berating yet slowly spiralling anger towards the Chhattisgarh Government. 

For the uninitiated, Dr. Binayak Sen, a paediatrician by profession and a civil rights activist in Naxalism stricken Chhattisgarh, was put to jail on May 14, 2007 on the charges of passing messages on behalf of a jailed Naxalist leader. He was arrested under the Chhattisgarh Public Security Act 2005 and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 after which he had been denied bail on every occasion.

It is further noteworthy that on March 31 the same year, several Adivasis were killed in Santoshpur, Chhattisgarh by police officers who alleged them to be Maoists. Dr Sen had been one of the most prominent faces condemning the attacks and who tried to draw attention towards the ghastly crime that had been committed in the name of duty. The autopsy report of the brutal 'encounter' showed that the dead had been hit on the head with bullets from a point blank range and there were also scars of axe injuries on their bodies. It was exactly a week after the autopsy report had come out that his arrest was made.

I don't propose to claim that I know any more that what daily newspapers feed me about him, but the case was such that any conscious citizen would feel aggravated by the lack of common sense and total arbitrariness with which he was kept in jail for a bailable offence, even though there was no material evidence. It is common knowledge for those who are familiar with even slightest of legal knowledge that bail is a matter of right. This right was not given to a man who is national Vice-President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

The seriousness of the matter and the levels the agitation for his release can be judged by the facts that sometime back 22 Nobel laureates from around the world had sent a written petition to the Government of India for Dr Sen’s release. Outstanding opinion leaders like Noam Chomsky and Amritya Sen besides those from the upper echelons of the media have all pushed for his cause. Innumerable campaigns in my own University where young students carrying placards and banners with messages like "Free Dr. Sen", "Grant Bail to Dr. Binayak Sen', took out protest marches and dharnas right from Art Faculty to all around the campus and back again for so many months. No major columnist or news magazine stopped short of voicing the injustice that was being perpetrated in the name of tackling Naxalism, Tehelka ran an entire issue on the same and every now and then the editorials would demand bail for Dr. Sen. But ofcourse the campaign didn't create as much of a furore among the masses the way the Jessica Lal issue or Aarushi case did, but it is definitely a victory for those fighting for civil rights in the country. And also a triumph for activism for one’s cause in the country.

UPA Returns

Results of the 15th Lok Sabha Elections have been out since seven or eight days now and the political magic/mania has not subsided at all. All the editorials or columns of the past month or so in one way or the other mention the elections or the people's mandate in an almost identical manner. There are certain details and observations which one would find in almost all such articles. First being the stability factor, the standard phrase being -- “the verdict of the people has shown that they want a stable government.” Second undoubtedly being the magnanimous integrity that the PM holds in the eyes of the nation, whose "commitment to the nation and honesty is above reproach or question". The third is definitely the Rahul Gandhi factor and how is a not your run-off-the-mill politician and how his subtle yet patient work has reaped results that no one had quite predicted.

I am most interested in the Rahul factor. His suave mannerisms have caught the fancy of the urban as well as the rural voter. Not your stereotype politician, he is ready to wait for his turn to come and till then committed towards focussing on workings of the youth brigade of his party.

Isn’t it quite remarkable how the three people at the helm of affairs of our nation have all been once considered naïve and reluctant politicians? Sonia Gandhi, when she first entered politics was rebuked for her accented Hindi, which she now fluently speaks at public gatherings; otherwise also her naiveté was jeered at mercilessly before and little after the UPA victory of 2004. The PM, we all know is for a fact an Economist, a former RBI Governor and someone who would rather be doing the works than merely be seen bringing down the opposition with his eloquent speeches. And then we have Rahul Gandhi, about whom enough has been said and written this past week or so.

But one thing I wonder all this while, what if the UPA had not won? Would we have been reading about how the same sloganeering, propaganda and advertisements by the BJP worked and how people were really voted for change? Then perhaps the PM would have been again termed weak and his policies lambasted? Rahul Gandhi would have been thwarted and his rural trips made fun of? Who knows? All the ideas that today we have formed, now that we know the results, would have stood no ground had the verdict been different.

For now, lets be happy that UPA was given an extended opportunity.