By Melanie P Kumar
Ilina Sen, wife of public health activist Dr Binayak Sen, who has been behind bars for the last two years for suspected links with extremists in Chhattisgarh, talks about Dr Sen’s work and the long and continuing struggle to secure his release
lina Sen ( born 1951) is currently Dean, School of Culture, at the Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University at Wardha in Maharashtra, India. She graduated from the University of Calcutta with honours in history and went on to study sociology and population studies before submitting her doctoral thesis on Low and Declining Sex Ratios, at the Centre for Regional Development at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 1985. She was the first awardee of the ICSSR research fellowship in Women's Studies and completed a post- doctoral fellowship in Paris. For over a decade, she worked as a scholar and a participant in the women's movement in parts of rural Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Out of this experience emerged her definitive work on the women's movement in India, A Space Within the Struggle (Kali for Women). She later worked in a consultative capacity with the Department for Women and Child Development in Madhya Pradesh and later Chhattisgarh and led the teams that drafted the Women's Policy for MP in 1995 and for Chhattisgarh in 2002.
Binayak and Ilina Sen together set up a Trust called Rupantar that worked on health, education and sustainable livelihoods among the Gond adivasis of southern Chhattisgarh. Binayak concentrated on training health workers to diagnose and treat killer diseases like malaria, and on nutrition and food security.
In this interview Ilina Sen speaks about Dr Sen’s work and the struggle to secure his release.
When Dr Binayak Sen was arrested on May 14, 2007, did you ever feel that the case would drag on for this long?
I had absolutely no idea. Initially, even before the actual arrest, when rumours were flying that the police were looking for him, he thought it was some misunderstanding, and came back from Kolkata to clear it up.
Has the fear psychosis related to terrorists and their actions worsened the problems and created unfair associations between terrorism and Dr Binayak Sen?
I would say, yes.
Before his arrest, was he already on the radar of officials? Then, was the story connected with the extremist Narayan Sanyal just a ploy to put him behind bars?
He was on the police radar ever since he exposed the Salwa Judum for what it was. This was late-2005. The fact that he visited Narayan Sanyal was used to fabricate this case.
Many know that Dr Sen was a rank student. Could you please give us details about his decision to work with the tribals of Chhattisgarh?
Binayak did his ISC from Kolkata, and joined Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore in 1966. We later found out that he had topped the selection process. Binayak stayed at CMC for ten years, and left after completing his DCH and MD (Paediatrics) in 1976. In his last year at CMC he won a national medical essay competition. This essay, on the nature of medical education, and his MD thesis on malnourished children, are probably what turned him in this direction.
What were the other motivating factors in getting him to focus on public health?
It was really a process. He first came to Chhattisgarh as part of a human rights group to investigate the 1981 arrest under NSA of (labour leader) Shankar Guha Niyogi. Once here, he found that Niyogi’s organisation was interested in building a health facility for workers, and decided to stay on… one thing then led to another.
He learnt the potential that trained health workers had while working in the Dalli Rajhara organisation with Niyogi. He developed this later in many new settings -- helping a group of AIIMS doctors to set up the Jan Swasthya Sahayog at Bilaspur, training traumatised industrial workers in health after the Bhilai police firing in 1992, training adivasi youth with almost no formal schooling to detect and treat malignant malaria in the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh.
Was the family involved with his work in any way?
In many ways, yes. I was his partner in the Rupantar Trust for tribal development, our daughter accompanied him on many human rights fact-finding missions and photographed for him…
Do you think that the creation of the state-sponsored Salwa Judum has shades of the divide and rule policy, where an atmosphere of mistrust has been created between communities of adivasis?
Definitely. There is an ethnic undercurrent in this entire thing. The Muria Gonds are supposed to be Maoist supporters, and the Telgas are the backbone of the Salwa Judum….the government plays on these divisions deliberately.
Has there been sufficient media support for Binayak Sen?
I think this has gathered incremental strength, and the media has been very active particularly in the last few weeks.
What about support from civil society both at home and abroad?
Very good. This is what saved his life in the first few weeks.
Do you think that sufficient support can be brought about to put pressure on the authorities for Dr Sen’s release?
I sincerely hope so, although there are moments of doubt and despair.
You had said something about Dr Sen being like a vamp in a Hindi movie? Can you please explain?
The state government has maligned him viciously, has kept this fiction up in the face of strong civil society support. I wonder how they envisage the end to this. I fear for his life. It is almost as if the script can only end in physical liquidation….this is why I don’t want him to have treatment in Raipur.
You had expressed the view that the space for dissent is shrinking within our country? If POTA is brought back in the new dispensation, do you think that all dissent will be choked out of existence?
Aren’t there already signs that this is happening?
Besides the huge blow to civil society with the arrest of Dr Sen, this is a personal tragedy of unimaginable proportions. How have you and your daughters managed to carry on?
With great difficulty, in many ways, but my daughters have been very brave. We have been strengthened by the huge amount of support we have received. So many old friendships have come to life again. But it has not been easy, and we do have our moments of despair.
Have you ever feared a threat to your life or that of your family members?
Very real ones. My older daughter was alone in Chhattisgarh for a year after Binayak’s arrest, and suffered anonymous calls, hate mail etc. This is largely why we decided to move the kids out.
Do you feel that Dr Sen’s incarceration will help to bring into focus the larger cause of adivasis and other displaced people who suffer injustice and have nowhere to go to for redressal?
I think this has happened to some extent. There is of course in India a huge gap between the voiceless and those who have a voice.
(Melanie P Kumar is a Bangalore-based journalist.)
