I spent the last two hours reading about this remarkable man who is confronting the worst form of iniquity in our country currently. Thanks to a recent post on a friend's blog, I learned about Dr. Binayak Sen, a public health specialist of international repute and the national vice-president of the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) , Chhattisgarh. Dr. Sen was arrested in May 2007 for alleged links with Maoist groups under the CSPSA and UAPA provisions, that allow for arbitrary detention denying the right to appeal. Dr. Sen had been actively involved in criticizing the unlawful encounter killings of several adivasis in the state through government controlled civil militia under the pretext of eliminating Naxal activities. The following statement was issued by Dr. Sen a few months before his arrest:

we are seeing all over India - and as part of that in the state of Chhattisgarh as well - a concerted programme to expropriate from the poorest people in the Indian nation, their access to essentials, common property resources and to natural resources including land and water... The campaign called the Salwa Judoom in Chhattisgarh is a part of this process in which hundreds of villages have been denuded of the people living in them and hundreds of people - men and women - have been killed. Government-armed vigilantes have been deployed and the people who have been protesting against such moves and trying to bring before the world the reality of these campaigns - human rights workers like myself - have also been targeted through state action against them. At the present moment the workers of the Chhattisgarh PUCL (People's Union for Civil Liberties) the Chhattisgarh branch, of which I am General Secretary, have particularly become the target of such state action; and I, along with several of my colleagues, are being targeted by the Chhattisgarh state in the form of punitive action, illegal imprisonment. And all these measures are being taken especially under the aegis of the Chhattisgarh Public Security Act.

According to online sources, this man has been kept in solitary confinement for the past eleven months while no conclusive evidence has been found to substantiate his alleged Maoist links. It is unfortunate that a man who has devoted himself to serve the public sphere finds himself the victim of an unlawful state, a corrupt police and an impotent judiciary. The case for Dr. Sen has found support from eminent personalities like Noam Chomsky, Amartya Sen, Ramachandra Guha, Arundhati Roy, filmmaker Shyam Benegal and the Magsasay award winning journalist P. Sainath. About a month ago, the Global Health Council announced that Dr. Sen had been selected to receive the most prestigious international honour in Global Health and Human Rights, the Jonathon Mann award. "The Mann Award is presented annually at the Global Health Councils international conference to "a practitioner who makes significant contributions toward practical work in the field and in difficult circumstances; highlights the linkage of health with human rights; works predominantly in developing countries and with marginalized people; and demonstrates serious and long-term commitment". Less than a week ago, twenty two Nobel laureates from around the world wrote India's President, Prime Minister and the Chhattisgarh state authorities to release Dr. Sen.

I strongly urge that you read about this man and perhaps think of casting a vote on this online petition form. It isn't much to be proud about but the least we can hope is that our armchair activism reaches some considerate ear that has the ability to restore a man his right to dignity and liberty.