Lessons from an Indian jail
The story of a doctor locked up for years for speaking up for the voiceless poor is a morality play with implications for all of us
By Priyamvada Gopal
As the world's financial and political elites ponder our economic futures, having whipped themselves into a frenzy about projected violence by the discontented, the case of an imprisoned Indian doctor teaches us something about power and impunity in our times. In our world, a select few – state actors and powerful corporations – seem authorised to enact their own forms of violence, destroying lives, life savings and livelihoods without brooking challenge or fearing punishment. Speaking up against these impunities can result in anything from intimidation, blacklisting and suspension to incarceration and, as the tragic instance of Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria showed, even simple murder.
For two years now, Dr Binayak Sen, an award-winning physician and civil rights activist practising in the Indian state of Chattisgarh, a resource-rich yet economically deprived region, has been rotting in prison. The charges levelled at him by the state are flimsy and the evidence even thinner. Caught, like other Chattisgarhis, in a virtual civil war between Naxalites, Maoist-inspired militants and a state-backed vigilante paramilitary known as the Salwa Judum, Sen has been accused in vaguely speculative terms of supporting the former. The case drags on with neither credible evidence on offer nor a determinate end in sight. A now seriously unwell Sen has also been denied bail and appropriate medical treatment for a heart condition.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
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