We won’t rest till Binayak Sen is freed say residents of Bangalore

‘Is this love of country or sedition?’, ‘Free Binayak Sen NOW’ these were some of the banners held up outside the Town Hall on Wednesday.

Over 200 people gathered to question the December 24 judgment of the sessions court of Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Judge BP Verma of that court had found Binayak Sen, pediatrician and national vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, India’s oldest and largest human rights organisation, guilty
of sedition and awarded him a life sentence.

Among those gathered were academics and scholars, members of the garments and textile workers union, lawyers, NGO activists and students.

Around those gathered stood a posse of policemen; as the banners, flags and charts were held high, the Town Hall itself was bedecked with a large red hoarding, advertising the show of Jadugar Karan, ‘the world’s superfast magician’. Would the people need to appeal to him, rather than to the seat of justice?

Among the speakers were academics like Prof Narasimhaiah, CS Dwarkanath of the state commission for backward classes, justice MF Saldanha, former judge of the Karnataka high court, Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swamiji, pontiff of the Nidumamidi Mutt in Kolar and Maulana Usman Baig of the All India Imam Council.

Prof Narasimhaiah and Dwarkanath recalled that Sen had worked for over 17 years among the Adivasi groups of Chhattisgarh, holding health camps and addressing public health policy.

Dwarkanath went on to suggest that if handing over a letter was ‘sedition’, surely, all postmen ought to be charged?

Justice MF Saldanha, former judge of the Karnataka high court, in a hard-hitting address, said that this judgement had caused him to feel ashamed. He had worked as part of India’s judicial system, and he had long held it in high regard, that was now shattered, he said, expressing satisfaction that Bangalore had responded to the judgment with protests. He exhorted the gathering not to rest until Sen was freed.

He said it was shameful that the very charges levelled against Mahatma Gandhi by the British government were now being made against Binayak Sen by the government of an independent land.

Justice Saldanha said the judiciary had sunk to a new low by claiming that Sen had contact with the ISI — it turned out that the ISI in question was not the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan, but the Indian Social Institute, an academic centre run by Jesuit priests.

Usman Baig of the All India Imam Council said that all along, he and others like him had believed that the Indian state had a propensity to be unfair to Muslims. Now, it was evident that those incapable of justice can be quite blind, and can act without discrimination.

Shocked by the judgement delivered by sessions judge BP Verma at Raipur on December 24, protests have been occurring across the country.

Meanwhile, Binayak Sen’s 84-year-old mother has said in Kolkata that she would appeal against the judgment. A host of intellectuals, including Noam Chomsky and Amartya Sen have spoken against the judgment, and lawyer  Ram Jethmalani has offered to defend Sen.
For more information, and to join this protest, get in touch with: PUCL, Bangalore chapter, C/o The Alternative Law Forum, 122/4, Infantry Road, Bangalore 560 001.
    t_rosamma@dnaindia.net