Interview
Professor Ilina Sen, feminist scholar and political activist, teaches at the Women’s Studies Department of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University in Wardha, Maharashtra. For more than three decades now, she has been involved in the cause of the women’s movement in Chhattisgarh, and has worked alongside her husband Dr. Binayak Sen in securing health care and rights for the adivasis of the area.
The 24 December 2010 judgment of the Second Additional District and Sessions Judge of Raipur, sentenced Dr. Binayak Sen to life imprisonment on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy for his alleged links with the naxal cause. Ilina Sen now struggles, like thousands of other women in conflict situation, to secure justice against a ‘democratic’ system that is dangerously authoritarian when it comes to silencing dissent. She expresses disappointment over the ‘unfair’ and ‘prejudiced’ decision of the Chhattisgarh High Court, which denied bail to Dr. Binayak Sen in Bilaspur last week. Apparently, the ‘nature and gravity’ of the offence of sedition were deemed sufficient grounds to deny him bail.
As Ilina Sen struggles to get Dr. Binayak Sen out of jail where he has already spent the last two years, she is also being harassed by the state on false charges under the Foreigners Act. Shuttling between Delhi and Chhattisgarh, caught in a wrangle of litigation and court hearings, it is no surprise that her faith in the ‘democratic’ system stands tested. But despite all odds, she is determined to fight to the very end, to ensure justice for Dr. Binayak and for others like him. In a candid interview for Seminar, Ilina Sen shares her thoughts with Bani Gill on the current conflict in Chhattisgarh, and on her own personal involvement and concerns:
Dr. Binayak Sen’s work in health and related issues is world renowned. What brought you to activism?
We actually came to Chhattisgarh at the call of the peoples’ movements and everything that we were able to do was in that context. We shifted to Dalli Rajhara in 1981 to work with the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh led by Shankar Guha Niyogi. Binayak’s first job there was to set up the Shaheed Hospital, a low cost, health facility that continues its work to this day. My introduction to the world of Chhattisgarh was with the women of Dalli Rajhara. So in a sense our engagement with conceptual and constructive work was always deeply rooted in activism
The state seems convinced that ‘extreme left-wing violence is the single largest challenge to internal security in the country.’ How do you respond to this?
My view would be that the deep inequity that exists in India between the haves and the have nots is the biggest internal security threat to this country. No stable system can survive on the basis of such a deep and continuously deepening gap. The failure of our political leadership to address these issues is what pushes people to militancy. I feel that people only take this route as a last resort.
Why are people, particularly adivasis, joining the Naxal movement in such large numbers? How would you explain the ‘Maoist insurgency’ as it exists today?
There are two separate issues here. One is that the Indian communist movement has always had a stream that looked upon armed capture of power as a strategy for effective social change. It is this section that has crystallized into the ‘Maoist’ party today. The other is the total lack of development and opportunity as well as the inequity that I have referred to above in the tribal areas.
The Maoist insurgency is the cocktail that is brewing from a mix of these two situations.
Is local resistance and protest to be immediately categorized as ‘Maoist’ as the state would like us to believe?
The resistance to the flawed priorities of the state and the inequities that many people are living under, has many hues and many nuances. It is state policy that is refusing to look at the shades of difference in the resistance, and is branding all dissent and criticism with the same brush. There is a very simplified categorization and clubbing of categories (Maoist, Naxal, terrorist, seditionist) in which all finer nuances and shades of difference become obliterated.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has stressed on a two-pronged strategy – effective policing and accelerated socio economic development programmes – to address the Naxalite problem. Do you think that the proposed Integrated Action Plan will adequately address and provide a lasting ‘solution’ to the conflict?
The two-pronged strategy contains not only a development prong, but also a military one. Apart from the fact that the military prong is an integrated part of the package, there are also differences on the content of the developmental prong. As such, I do not see this as providing a lasting solution to the basic issues in this conflict ridden area.
How has ‘Operation Green Hunt’ impacted the lives of the people there? In a recent interview you alleged that ‘The security establishment has gained a lot of power in the process and often calls the shots. They also have huge funding that comes from keeping the naxalite issue alive.’ What do you mean?
Operation Green Hunt and the militarization of the area (including Maoist militancy) has ended all normalcy in the area. In a militarized situation each side acts, at some level, as the mirror image of the other. The security establishment does have access to large funding from the state that is not always open to public scrutiny. This power and money owes its origin to a stated threat perception, and after a while one has a vested interest in retaining the threat perception.
How do you respond to the charges of sedition levelled against Dr. Binayak Sen, and his consequent conviction and sentencing by the Sessions Court?
Sedition is an outdated, colonial concept. Binayak is being singled out and persecuted under it in order to send a message to civil society about the limits within which it is ‘safe’ for them to operate.
Why, in your opinion, is the state so scared of Binayak Sen?
This case is an index case for the government’s attempts to silence dissent. The state has staked its reputation on it.
There has been a huge response against Dr. Binayak Sen’s conviction. Are you hopeful about a possible reversal of the judgment? Do you think the nation-wide protests held on January 30th – including in Raipur, where nearly a thousand workers, peasants, students and intellectuals, half of them women, participated – will provide additional momentum?
This protest needs to be understood in terms of a growing public anger against the unjust trajectory of development, bankruptcy of the political leadership, repressive machinery of the state, and the injustice that many individuals are forced to endure at different points in their lives. Binayak’s case has brought all these issues home in a single metaphor. Certainly this is a cause for courage, and will have its effects. If our political leadership had any wisdom, they would read the signals and respond to them. Instead they are waiting to wear out the protesters.
Do you feel that the protest against Binayak Sen’s incarceration is also symbolic of a larger resistance and protest against the arbitrary arrest of thousands of other ordinary people, mostly adivasis but also civil liberties activists and intellectuals?
Absolutely true. I am certain the campaign will yield positive results in a larger political sense, not only for Binayak, but for many others too. However, it will not be easy to secure justice for anyone, not even Binayak, because the entire state machinery has ranged itself against these human rights defenders.
Do you think Dr. Sen’s conviction is symptomatic of a larger trend? Is his arrest the first of many others that will follow?
I think this may well be the case.
Given Dr. Binayak Sen’s long and pointless incarceration, and the recent rejection of his bail, do you still have faith in the judicial system.
The judicial process has certainly been unfair and prejudiced. At the same time, it is important to retain hope and faith, because one can only go forward in a positive spirit.
How do you respond to the charges levelled against you in accordance with the Foreigners Act, Section 14? Do you think it is a mere ‘coincidence’ that such charges have been levelled against you at a time when you are in the midst of a legal battle in the Chhattisgarh High Court for the release of your husband?
No question of coincidence. It was definitely ‘enemy action’, to use Ian Fleming’s words. Otherwise, how does the ATS (Anti-Terrorism Squad) get involved in the implementation of the Foreigners Act?
As a Women’s Studies scholar, and an activist, what is your understanding of the conflict in Chhattisgarh and the many contradictions within it? What has been the impact of the conflict on the women of this region?
Women have been the most brutally violated, but they have also resisted. In some ways, the growing number of women in the Naxal squads is an expression of this resistance, although couched in militaristic, patriarchal language. The conflict in Chhattisgarh has ideological, ethnic, imperialist and resource dimensions – it is extremely complex.
We have been hearing an increased number of alarming reports on the vigilante justice of the Salwa Judum, which includes arbitrary killings, torture and rape. Has sexual violence become systemic?
Patriarchal wars have always used sexual violence against women as part of the arsenal.
What role does the women’s movement in India play in structuring our understanding of the conflict? And in subsequent dialogues of peace?
The women’s movement has at one level, a clear historical understanding of the nature of the state as an institution of patriarchy, and of peoples’ resistance as an instrument for the articulation of the discourse on equity. Lasting peace can only be based on equity. The overt conflict/s in many situations today contains this dialectic, and the women’s movement in this sense has the capacity to be a catalyst for a just future. The challenge lies in recognizing this role and acting it out.
As a feminist scholar, what do you envisage as a ‘solution’ to the conflict? What are the prospects of an enduring peace?
There can be no final solutions, as history and human progress are both processes. Peace and equity have been renegotiated in each generation. For the present, one will be satisfied if the general movement is towards an order more democratic than the previous one.
Given everything that has happened, is there anything you wish you had done differently? In other words, would you still heed the call of the people and take the route of activism in Chhattisgarh?
Perhaps we lacked a realistic appreciation of the nature of the state, and I regret that today. Otherwise, I have no regrets for the life we have led. It was rich and rewarding in every way.
