I am a woman in my eighties. As perhaps many of you are aware, my son Binayak Sen, is held in jail as a victim of extreme injustice.
When he graduated with his first medical degree with distinction at the age of twenty-two from the Christian Medical College in Vellore, he refused to heed his father's wish for him to go to England to study for the MRCP.
He was subsequently awarded an MD in pediatrics from Vellore, and then joined JNU as an assistant professor.
He soon left his academic position to take up a position at the TB Research Centre and hospital run by the Friends' Rural Centre at Hoshangabad (Madhya Pradesh). After a couple of years there, he began work among the miners in Chhattisgarh.
While working with Rupantar at Raipur, Dr Sen joined the People's Union of Civil Liberties as an all-India vice President and secretary for the state of Chhattisgarh.
In the course of his medical work among the poor and the oppressed, which was already occupying all his time, he became aware of the abuses of the state towards the poor adivasis of Bastar district, and protested against the state sponsored Salwa Judum movement that pitted adivasis against one other.
The fact that the prisoner was a Naxalite gave the state an opportunity to arrest and imprison Dr Sen on May 14, 2007 under the state's Public Security laws.
When the Chhattisgarh High Court denied Dr Sen his appeal for bail, his wife Dr Ilina Sen appealed to the Supreme Court. The date for the hearing of the bail petition was fixed for Monday, December 10 2007.
A Bench consisting of a senior and a junior judge was appointed to hear the appeal for bail. On December 8, the Chhatisgarh government invited the senior member of this Bench to Raipur as the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of a Legal Aid Centre, and extended its hospitality to him till December 9 when the senior judge returned to New Delhi. The very next day, the Bench dismissed Dr Binayak Sen's appeal for bail in just thirty-five minutes.
Here, without casting any doubts or aspersions on anyone's integrity, I humbly wish to pose my question to all the people and revered leaders of free, democratic India: should I regard as justice the refusal of bail to one who even as a child was moved by injustice, who having devoted his entire working life selflessly to providing food and health to the poor, who without coveting wealth survived for days on dal, rice and green chillies, who is accustomed to living like the poor, who dedicated his life to serving the people of his country, and who is now arraigned for breach of public security and waging war against the state? If this is justice, where I should I seek redress against injustice? Should
I remain a victim of injustice even at this age?
