Dr Binayak Sen:

A medical visionary:
His life and work for people in
Chhattisgarh,& for public health in
India.
Jan Swasthya Abhiyan
Medico Friends’ Circle
Free Binayak Sen Campaign—Doctors in Solidarity
College Day, Bagayam, late 1960s
 Academic qualifications
• M.B.B.S. in 1972 and D.C.H. : Christian Medical
College, Vellore.

• M.D. Pediatrics in 1976: Christian Medical

College, Vellore.

• One of the top students of the college.

• Winner of IDPL National Award for best essay

on medical education.
 Binayak’s M.D. Thesis was on

• MARASMUS AND
MALNUTRITION IN
CHILDREN
• He began to get involved in the
issues of hunger, poverty and social
inequity.
 What did such a bright person do
after qualifying as a specialist?

I. Taught in the Centre of Social Medicine

and Community Health of Jawaharlal
Nehru University for two years—1976-’78.
II.Worked for Tuberculosis patients in rural
Hoshangabad district – Friends Rural
Centre, Rasulia 1978-1981.
III. Worked in a workers’ health movement in
Chhattisgarh and towards creating a
hospital unparalleled in India and possibly
the world.
Chhattisgarh was a part of Madhya
Pradesh
Chhattisgarh as it is now
 Dalli Rajhara, District Durg.
• Contractual workers of the iron ore mines
of Bhilai Steel Plant at Dalli Rajhara.

• Pathetic living conditions.

• No access to healthcare.
 In late seventies
• Chhattishgarh Mines Shramik Sangh vice-
president Kusumbai died during childbirth
in the Steel plant hospital in Dalli Rajhara
being neglected by the doctors and
nurses.
• Workers vowed to build a maternity home
their own.
 Safai Andolan
• In 1980 the workers struggled forcing the
Steel Plant management to make
arrangements for waste disposal in the
slums.
• Dalli-Rajhara came to limelight when Com.
Shankar Guha Niyogi was arrested under
MISA for the anti-mechanisation struggle.
• Doctors got attracted towards the
movement.
Shaheed Hospital -Dalli Rajhara
• A program of the toilers by the toilers.
• No external funding, constructed by the
workers from contribution from their wages.
• Workers participate in decision making and
day to day functioning.
• Vision of Shankar Guha Niyogi, and doctors
like Dr. Binayak Sen, Dr. Asis Kumar
Kundu, Dr. Saibal Jana.
Shankar Guha Niyogi—an unique
trade-union leader
A UNIQUE HOSPITAL IS BORN
 Hospital of the toilers, by the toilers,
for…. everybody
• Shaheed Dispensary in 1982

• 15 bedded hospital in 1983

• 50 bedded hospital in 1989 with Operation theater,

laboratory, pharmacy.

• Served people of 150 km radius

• Major emphasis on demystification of medicines

rational therapy, cost reduction and equity.
 Shaheed Hospital
Of the toilers, by the toilers for
everyone .
 Observations by a Doctor on Binayak
in Shaheed Hospital
“I met Dr Sen first in August 1984. He was examining a child
in the verandah of the Shaheed Hospital when the child
passed stools. Binayak went and fetched a mop and
cleaned up the mess.
“He told me that he was as qualified as anybody else to
handle a mop- so why not?
“I cannot understand how that quiet and polite gentleman can
be considered seditious.?”

Prabir Chatterjee, CMC post-graduate

IV. Worked with under-served village
communities to develop programs to
improve their health, education and
agriculture.
• 1994: Rupantar

• Raipur: Nagri Sihawa Block, Bagrumnala Vill.

• People displaced by dam-building in the upper

Mahanadi catchment area.

• Previous health services practically non-existent.

• Trained, deployed, monitored community health
workers in 20 villages.

• Provided referral backup for these workers.

• Basic medical lab with locally trained technician.

• Care for a variety of illnesses e.g. Falciparum

malaria, tuberculosis.
A people ……
And their doctor……
The first school in Kekrakholi..
Improving yields….
Protecting Chattisgarh’s rich
biodiversity
•
Women’s issues
IV. Worked to strengthen primary and
secondary health care in Chhattisgarh
• Member , State Advisory Committee on
Health Sector Reforms.

• Implementation of the Mitanin Programme

in 2 blocks of the state.
Mitanin Programme
Chhattisgarh State Drug Formulary
Standard Treatment Guidelines for Medical Officers, Chhattisgarh
V. Worked for provision and protection of
human rights of the poor and the
marginalised in Chhattisgarh and India.
Initiated to human rights movement
when he was a member of P.U.C.L.
team investigating police firing of
workers of Rajnandgaon B.N.C.Mills in
1984.
 People’s Union for Civil Liberties
(PUCL) http://www.pucl.org
National Seminar in October 1976 Founder: Jaya Prakash Narayan
(during the “National Emergency”)
inaugurated by Acharya Kripalani.
President: K.G. Kannabiran
“An organization free from 6 Vice Presidents
political ideologies, so that
people belonging to various Binayak Sen (Chhattisgarh)
political parties may come Mathew Manakattu (Kerala)
together on one platform for Prabhakar Sinha (Bihar)
the defence of Civil Liberties Ravi Kiran Jain (UP)
and Human Rights.” Yogesh Kamdar (Mumbai)
Sudha Ramalingam (TN and
• Accepts no money from any funding Puduseri)
agency, Indian or foreign.
 Protecting Human Rights in
Chhattisgarh
• Right to Food campaign: Binayak is on
Executive committee for Right to Food
petition.
• Chhattisgarh Bio-diversity Security Forum:
Protest against Syngenta.
• Probes into custodial death: Supela
episode.
• Probes into land acquisitions by corporates.

• Legal aid to undertrials.

• Investigations into the human rights issues

related to the crisis in Bastar.

• Protests against the Chhattisgarh Special Public

Security Act.
 Frontline,
March 2006
• "These senseless killings are unfortunate and must
stop.

• Both sides should sit down to talk and find a way to

peace"

said Binayak Sen, a PUCL activist in Raipur

(source: PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. Writing in

the magazine FRONTLINE, Volume 23 - Issue 05 :: Mar. 11 - 24, 2006)
What was Binayak Sen doing in Chattisgarh,for the
people of Chhattisgarh, for 30 years?

• Building hospital still being successfully run by mine

& factory workers.
• Training people in villages to look after the health of
their own communities.
• Running free clinics in areas where medical
facilities are not available.
• Providing education to tribal children.
What was Binayak Sen doing in Chattisgarh,for the
people of Chhattisgarh, for 30 years?

• Improving agriculture, protecting biodiversity.

• Helping, advising, contributing to the State

Government’s Community Health Programmes.

• Defending the rights of citizens, especially the poor

and the marginalised.

• Ensuring proper treatment of under-trial prisoners.

…
• What did he get in
return?
 From his college in 2004
The Paul Harrison Award for outstanding
contribution to health care in rural areas.
• R.R. Khaitan Award from Indian Academy
of Social Sciences in 2007.
• Jonathan Mann Award from Global Health
Council.

Dr. Sen could not take these awards in

person.
Paul Harrison Award
CITATION
 From the Government of
Chhattisgarh in 2007

• Arrest under the Chattisgarh Special

Public Security Act 2005
 May 14, 2007:
Dr. Binayak Sen Arrested in Chhattisgarh
Under ‘Public Security Act’

WHY ??!!
 Binayak Sen
• Worked constructively and untiringly for
the poor living in some of the most difficult
regions of the country.

• Worked in the public domain, and with

constructive engagement with the
Government
• With democratic institutions

• Spoke against violence.

• Never committed a single unlawful act.

 Binayak Sen
• Raised not only the issue of health as a
basic human right.

• But also ……

• The protection of human rights as a critical

determinant of the health of a people.
 Binayak raised issues without
fear or favor …
• Against the Congress Government : The
protection of land and livelihood rights of
tribals to be displaced by the Steel plant at
Nagarnar

• Against the BJP Government : For human

rights violations in the ongoing Salwa
Judum campaign in Dantewada.
What is the price to be paid for voicing
dissent peacefully and raising issues
democratically in a free country ?

• Detention under an Act which considers

any kind of dissent, or disobedience, even
unlinked with any violence as an
Unlawful activity.
• General “tendency” to disobedience can
be punished. No overt act is necessary.
 The protests against Binayak Sen’s arrest.
Widespread and continuing…….

Numerous organisations,
Hundreds of leading citizens, intellectuals,
and medical academics.
Thousands of doctors, medical students,
common people in chattisgarh,
Protests in tens of Indian cities and across
the world……….
Amidst nation-wide and international protest
Dr. Sen was granted bail by a vacation
bench of the Supreme Court on May 20 ,
2009.
On December 24, 2010 the district sessions
court of Raipur sentenced Binayak to life
imprisonment. He is guilty of sedition
according to the court.

WHY THE STATE CONSIDERS DR. SEN

DANGEROUS??
Chhattisgarh is rich in minerals
 Mineral reserves
• Iron ore, coal, bauxite, lime stone
• Only state having tin ore reserve
• Gold, diamond and corundum reserves
discovered.
Most of the mineral reserves are in
forest.
• 44% of the land of Chhattisgarh is under
forest cover.
• 21% of India is forest.
• 8% of India’s population is tribal.
• 33% of Chhattsigarh’s population is tribal.
• Tribals reside mostly in the forest villages.
Forest area of Chhattisgarh
 Surge of Industrialisation
Government plans to set up
• Over 60 coal-based power plants
generating 50,000 MW electricity (state’s
requirment is 5000 MW).
• Over 40 new steel plants
• Large Cement factories.
State intends to displace the tribals
• Tribals fight back
• State raised a private army—Salwa Judum
• Villagers confined in camps to ‘protect
them from maoists’.
• Actually to evict them from their villages.
• Hundreds are killed in ‘civil war’ between
Salwa Judum and Maoists.
 Binayak despises violence
• He is against terror both red (maoist terror)
and white (state terror)
• As National Vice-president and
Chhattisgarh State General Secretary of
P.U.C.L., he led and assisted many fact-
finding teams exposing the state terror.
 HE IS DANGEROUS
• Binayak is dangerous for the state
because he exposes state terror.
• because he opposes state’s notion of
‘development’.
When I give food to the
poor, they call me a saint.

When I ask why the poor

have no food, they call
me a Communist.

- Dom Helder Pessoa Camara, former

Roman Catholic archbishop of
Olinda and Recife, Brazil
“First They First they came for the

Came” Communists, and I didn’t speak

up because I wasn’t a
Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I
didn’t speak up because I
wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I
was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by
that time there was nobody left
to speak up.
- Pastor Martin Niemoller, 1892-1984
 SPEAK UP

RESIST
THE SILENT
EMERGENCY