Obviosuly more than signature petition would be
need to reverse this judgement in a higher court. Any way we can
help?
----- Original Message -----
From: Sent:
Monday, 27 December, 2010 7:33 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: [goawriters] M.J. Akbar on Binayak Sen
Here's a petition against his imprisonment:
http://www.petitiononline.com/sen2010/petition.html
Dr
Sen was the doctor who helped Shakar Guha Niyogi and the Chhattisgarh
Mukti Morcha start their Shaheed Hospital, creating a healthcare sytem
from scratch, funded and run by tribal mineworkers. Chrissie and I were
trying to meet him when we traveled around Chhattisgarh in the late 90s,
writing about the CMM, but were unable to.
Cheryl
---
Date:
Sunday, December 26, 2010, 7:39 AM
---------- Forwarded message
----------
Byline for26th December 2010
M.J.Akbar
India has become
a strange democracy where Binayak Sen gets life in
jail and dacoits
get a life in luxury. It takes years of pressure for
government to
move against those looting the nation's treasury; and
when the
majestic forces of enforcement do go on a "raid" they give
their
quarry enough time to remove every trace of evidence. You have
to be
exceptionally stupid to store evidence of your own culpability
in a
telecom scandal where deals were made and money paid three
years
before. Or, for that matter, even six months ago, as in some
instances
of the highly lubricated Commonwealth Games. By this time
the money
has either been spent, converted into assets, or sent to a
convenient
haven abroad. The political-industrial nexus is above the
law, because
it controls enforcement. But if the ruling class of
India could have
hanged Binayak Sen instead of merely trying to send
him to jail for
the rest of his life, it would have done
so.
Binayak made a fundamental, mortal mistake. He was on the
side of the
poor. That is a non-negotiable error in our oligarchic
democracy.
Christmas must be truly merry in the homes of Sonia
Gandhi, Manmohan
Singh, P. Chidambaram and of course Raman Singh this
year. The
Congress and BJP dislike each other with a passion that
only a thirst
for power can generate; they disagree on just about
anything and
everything. But there is perfect harmony between them
over Naxalite
policy. End the Naxalite problem by elimination of the
messenger; and
the poor will not have the courage to ask for more
than the trickle
allotted to them by a gluttonous
government.
Media is obedient doorman of this nexus, protecting
its interests with
a zeal that should surprise even the benefactors.
The arrest of
Binayak was converted into instant accusatory
headlines. His trial was
ignored by the press, which is why we do not
know that there was
virtually no substantive evidence. Suffice it to
say that two of
Binayak's jailors, during his detention without bail,
were declared
hostile by the prosecution. Prosecuting lawyers are in
the pay of
government, as are the jailors. And yet two policemen
refused to back
the prosecution. A fabricated unsigned letter,
apparently cooked up on
a computer printout, seems to have been
sufficient to convince the
honourable guardians of our judicial
system that Binayak Sen deserved
a sentence reserved for only the
most hardened murderer.
It is another matter that Binayak Sen,
who was senior to me in school,
was and remains the gentlest of
people, distinguished only by a fierce
commitment to his cause of
choice. I do not agree with his political
views or inclinations; nor
does the political system. But it is only
in a dictatorship that
disagreement is sufficient reason for
incarceration. India seems to
be developing a two-tier democracy:
generosity of the law for the
privileged and vindictive, distorted
application on the
underprivileged.
It is ironic that the Binayak judgement appeared
on the front pages of
the Christmas day newspapers. We all know that
Jesus was not born on
25 December; it was only in the fourth century
that Pope Liberius
declared this date to be a birthday because
mystery and miracle has
been associated with the winter solstice from
time beyond memory.
Christmas has become an international festival
because it represents
the most important values that give life some
meaning and hold the
complex social web together: peace, and goodwill
towards all men,
without which there cannot be peace.
This
goodwill is not sectarian; it is easy to have goodwill towards
some
men, friends or benefactors. Christmas is the festival of the
Other.
It is the embrace of the dissident, or even the enemy. The
most
famous display of the Christmas spirit was the pause on the
frontline
in the First World War, when a few British and German
soldiers
announced an impromptu truce, played football, shared a
drink and
became human for a day before their superiors ordered them
to return
to the savagery of a terrible war that wrecked
Europe.
If Binayak Sen is guilty of sedition on the basis of
fictitious
evidence, then, as was famously said during the great
Gandhian
movement against the British between 1919 and 1922, there
are not
enough jails in India to hold those equally guilty. The
reference is
not accidental. Governments have begun to opt for a
colonial approach
towards Naxalism and its myriad manifestations. The
reason? Fear,
perhaps terror. The corrupt can recognise their
nemesis.
[Non-text portions of this message have been
removed]
--
Pamela D'Mello
Cell 9850 461649
http://pameladmello.wordpress.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/pameladmello
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