About Dr. Binayak Sen
About Dr. Binayak Sen
Dr. Binayak Sen is a pediatrician, public health specialist and national Vice-President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) based in Chhattisgarh state, India. Dr Sen is noted for extending health care to the poorest people, monitoring the health and nutrition status of the people of Chhattisgarh, and defending the human rights of indigenous tribal and other poor people. Dr. Sen insists that it is not possible for poor people to have health if they are denied their human rights and the right to livelihood. In May 2007, he was detained in connection with his human rights work, raising global concern about his welfare.
He had a distinguished academic career in Vellore, graduating in Medicine and later acquiring an M.D. in Paediatrics. From 1976 to 1978, he was a faculty member at the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He left his academic appointment to work in a community based rural health centre in Hoshangabad district of M.P. focusing on problems of tuberculosis. During the late seventies, he became an active member of the Medico Friend Circle, a national organization of health professionals working towards an alternative health system responsive to the needs of the poor. This involvement continues till today.
Binayak worked with mine workers in Dalli Rajahara towards addressing their health needs, helping them set up and manage their own Shaheed Hospital. When this hospital no longer required his leadership, Binayak moved to a mission hospital in Tilda where he worked in Paediatrics and Community Health. After the death of Shankar Guha Niyogi with whom he was closely associated, Binayak moved to Raipur. From 1991, he has worked in developing relevant models of primary health care in Chhattisgarh. He was a member of the state advisory committee to initiate the community based health worker programme across Chhattisgarh, now well known as the Mitanin programme. He also gives his services to a weekly clinic in a tribal community in Dhamtari district. He continues to provide health care to the children of the marginalised, especially the migrant labourers.
Binayak has been active and effective in defending the liberties of the disadvantaged, especially through the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). He has served as the General Secretary of the State PUCL Committee for the past five years and as Vice President of the National Committee for the last three years. As General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh PUCL, he helped organize fact finding campaigns into human rights violations in the state including custody deaths, fake encounters, hunger deaths, dysentery epidemics and malnutrition. In recent times he has worked intensively to bring large scale oppression and malgovernance within the so called Salwa Judoom in Dantewara to national and international attention.
Achievements in Healthcare:
· Dr. Sen helped to set up the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha's Shaheed Hospital, a pioneering health programme for the region. The hospital is owned and operated by a workers' organization for the benefit of all, regardless of caste or any other background.
· Dr. Sen and his wife, Dr. Ilina Sen, are the founders of Rupantar, a community-based nongovernmental organization that has trained, deployed and monitored the work of community health workers spread throughout 20 villages. Rupantar's activities include initiatives to counter alcohol abuse and violence against women, and to promote food security.
· Dr. Sen is an advisor to Jan Swasthya Sahyog, a health care organization committed to developing a low-cost, effective, community health programme in the tribal and rural areas of Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh.
· He was also a member of the state advisory committee set up to pilot the community based health worker programme across Chhattisgarh, later well-known as the Mitanin programme.
· He also gives his services to a weekly clinic in a tribal community.
Doctors across India have started holding free clinics for the poor in tribute
to the example of Dr. Sen, and to peacefully campaign for his release.
Human Rights and Peace:
· Dr Sen is the National Vice-President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and General Secretary of its Chhattisgarh unit. In his PUCL capacity, he has helped to organize numerous fact finding missions into human rights violations. These have included:
-- extra-judicial killings,
-- prisoners likely to be at risk of torture.
He participated in investigations which drew attention to severe human rights violations including murder of unarmed and demonstrably innocent civilians, by the police and local government-backed "Salwa Judoom" (sometimes spelt "Salva Judum") - an anti-Maoist movement consisting of armed civilians.
Dr. Sen has been noted for his advocacy of peaceful methods. Talking to reporter Purnima S. Tripathi of the magazine Frontline in March 2006, he said of the violence in Chhattisgarh: "These senseless killings are unfortunate and must stop and both sides should sit down to talk and find a way to peace." (Frontline, Volume 23, Issue 05 : March 11 - 24, 2006).
In a statement immediately preceding his arrest, Dr. Sen said, "For the past several years, 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."
Awards and Honours:
· Dr Sen was the recipient in 2004 of the Paul Harrison award for a lifetime of service to the rural poor. This award is given annually by the prestigious Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, to one of its alumni.
· Dr. Sen was awarded the R.R. Keithan Gold Medal by The Indian Academy of Social Sciences (ISSA) on 31 December 2007. The citation describes him as "one of the most eminent scientists" of India. "The award is for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of science of Nature-Man-Society and his honest and sincere application for the improvement of quality of life of the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed people of Chhattisgarh." His "suffering and personal risk" would inspire scientists as well as the general public for a very long time, according to the citation.
· On April 21, 2008, the Global Health Council announced that the winner of the 2008 Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights is Dr. Binayak Sen. The Council issued a public statement, "This 58-year-old pediatrician was selected by an international jury of public health professionals for this prestigious award because of his years of service to poor and tribal communities in India, his effective leadership in establishing self-sustaining health care services where none existed, and his unwavering commitment to civil liberties and human rights. In addition to working with the PUCL, Sen and his wife, Dr. Ilina Sen, are the founders of Rupantar, a community-based nongovernmental organization that has trained, deployed and monitored the work of community health workers spread throughout 20 villages. Rupantar's activities include initiatives to counter alcohol abuse and violence against women, and to promote food security. Dr. Sen's accomplishments speak volumes about what can be achieved in very poor areas when health practitioners are also committed community leaders. He staffed a hospital created by and funded by impoverished mine workers, and he has spent his lifetime educating people about health practices and civil liberties -- providing information that has saved lives and improved conditions for thousands of people. His good works need to be recognized as a major contribution to India and to global health; they are certainly not a threat to state security."
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