Review Article: Political Culture of Health in India

Sunil Amrith’s article titled “Political Culture of Health in India” is an attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of historical development in health care in India. The two quotes provided at the start of the article prepare an apt background for the article, one talk about the aspiration we had as a newly independent nation and second one talks about how much we’ve succeeded in fulfilling those aspirations. Actually before Independence, there were numerous contradictions that shaped the Indian state’s commitment to public health. On one side, there was Gandhi’s famous assertion to “wipe every tear from every eye” that depicts the sheer expectations national leaders had from Independent India but at the same time there existed insufficient infrastructure that made sure that India never realizes its dream.

Reading materials on health care commitment of Indian state before Independence, one can easily argue that colonial ruler always looked at medical care with the prism of poverty and solution was sought in implementation of eugenics based health policy. In 1930s and 1940s, dominant discourse was that with the help of eugenics, which implies the use of coercive state power, a human race could be improved, making it more efficient and more governable. Hitler tried to implement it in Germany and it resulted in genocide of millions of Jews. Fortunately India had enough intellectual, cultural and institutional forces that prevented its implication here.

During the Quit India movement, British government tried to improve basic health infrastructure in India, but main thrust behind this attempt was to balance the past mistakes and assuage anti-British feelings that was at its climax at that time.

But there were other reasons too that made colonial rulers interested in developing health infrastructure to a certain extent. Professor Randall Packard in his scholarly article “Post-war Health and Development” uses different analogy to describe colonial government’s willingness to do something for health infrastructure in India. According to Professor Packard, colonial government developed health infrastructure in India to serve its political and economic interests as all health centers were established close to sites of production. Government wanted to keep workers healthy so that it could increase productivity.

Sunil Amrith’s article doesn’t mention Christian Missionaries contribution towards health infrastructure in India. In many remote areas in India, it was the Christian Missionaries who provided basic health care especially in many tribal concentrated areas. Objective behind Missionaries intervention can be contested but there is no denying that they played major part in development of basic health infrastructure in India.

So while examining the advent of planned health policies in India, we can see a heady mixture of ethical imperatives: democracy, self-reliance, concern with poverty, fear of degeneration, eugenics and a good deal of faith, faith in potential for planned social transformation.

In Post-Independence era, Nehru’s Fabian Socialism dominated the health care discourse. With the National Planning Commission in his control, He borrowed many European schemes in India. Liberal health policies of New Zealand and Soviet Union’s state controlled health care solutions were tried in Indian circumstances. But policymakers ignored the point that India was a tropical country and it had not strong and well-established bureaucracy like European and other countries.

Spending on health care remained at very low level and it was compensated by foreign help now and then. Despite Bhore Committee pressing need for more spending in health care, its recommendations remained unheard or at that time, it was not feasible for a country like India to implement Bhore Committee’s recommendation in fullest as it proposed impossible 3 billion spending on Health care. Instead of developing local health infrastructure in India, government relied more on foreign help. Global Institutions like WHO and USAIDS started having more influence on health care policies formation and implementation in India.

Here author takes the example of Malaria Eradication Programme to show the extent of foreign interference in the policy formation and implementation. During the span of 1959-1963, Indian government allocated huge budget for malaria eradication, 70 percent of the all communicable disease control and nearly 30 percent of overall budget. It was so huge programme that 8,704 malaria squads were employed and just a year after the national malaria programme began, state released a report that declared it as “a new era of health and happiness” as before the people were living in erstwhile malaria tracts.

Yet, this much celebrated malaria programme failed as cases of malaria victims increased dramatically, part of the reason was inadequate health infrastructure and over-reliance on DDT spraying was part responsible as USAIDS stopped providing DDT to India due to some serious debate on DDT in US. Here availability of local health infrastructure is very important as it was seen that the states like Kerela which developed a good health infrastructure could sustain good performance in health care.

It was not the only instance when state through its machinery started implemented health care programme. Even after malaria eradication programme, population control programme was started under state’s coercive power. Again this programme was the result of WHO and USAIDS overemphasis on population control. This programme was given such importance that one new ministry was created. Astronomical budget was allotted to this ministry that damaged growth of other health services in the country.

Again Professor Randall Packard provides more succinct and yet picture of post-independence health care development. Sunil Amrith in his article doesn’t mention inequalities in health care. Even after the Independence, health services remained highly concentrated in the urban area. Rural areas remained out of the radar. Political and economic elites resisted any redistribution that diminishes their access. And it was not out of sheer generosity western countries seemed interested in India, they looked it as a market opportunity for their hi-tech equipments. Also author doesn’t mention in his article interlink between health intervention and socio-economic development. Some policies were formed on this basis but they showed no evidence of social-economic emancipation of unprivileged community.

Sunil Amrith’s article also doesn’t mention the change in worldview after the failure of malaria eradication programme. Randall argues that failure of malaria eradication programme contributed in radically changing the conventional mental setup and led to a new shift in perspective.

There can be other critique of health care policy of India also that has not been included or mentioned in Sunil Amrith’s article. Most of the health care intervention in India looks at health as the absence of disease. That’s why health policies in India have been focused on disease control and eradication. Little attention was paid broader definition of health which included clean water, food, right habits and sanitation. As Ivan Illich’s says modern health care system focuses mainly on curing rather caring, Indian Health Care system can be a good example of this line of thought. In post-independence period, population was seen as a problem but broader causes of population never questioned.

Even Gandhian tradition of health care was ignored in India. His concept of community based health care was never given importance in policy formation. Gandhi was against technology but health care policies in India promoted technology and made whole population dependent on it. Local knowledge of medication was not given due attention. Local population was taken as a subject of study rather than social being. Author doesn’t take these aspects in his account of health care services in India.

Sunil Amrith’s paper doesn’t cover health care development in India after the liberalization policies initiated by the Indian Government. Urban-rural gap has increased, now there are world class facilities in the urban area even some cities in India are emerging as Global medical tourism centers. Government has also tried to improve rural health infrastructure with the help of programmes like National Rural Health Mission and National Health Insurance Policy.

Even after all these efforts health indicators have not shown any drastic turn around. Medication cost has increased and it is adding another dimension to poverty in India. Health is not a right, but comes under state’s directive principle. But in recent times, there have been some critics of government apathy towards health care in India. Among these, most prominent criticism has come from Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. According to Professor Sen there is gigantic inequality in health care in India and inequality is not only bad distribution of the overall health benefits, but it also reduces the overall health benefit. He is also stressing for more active governmental role in providing health care to population in India.

In India, there are still some sections where health care have not reached yet. If we take example of tribal people, they have been deprived of any government provided health care facilities. I think government’s apathy towards tribal in providing health care benefits becomes very clear when we look at the problem faced by Dr Binayak Sen. He tried to provide health care to tribal communities in Chattisgarh but was jailed on the sedition charges. So gap is still there, discrimination on basis of caste/caste/religion exists.

References:
Post-war Health and Development by Randall Packard
Medical Nemesis: Expropriation of Health by Ivan Illich
Hind Swaraj by MK Gandhi (his thoughts on health)
Amartya Sen and Dr Binayak Sen’s take on health care in India (published in newspapers and different journals)

Does caste play a decisive role in politics in India?

Caste in India is a reality which cannot be ignored at any cost and when it comes to domain of politics, its significance reaches to absolute height. It would be a fallacy to believe that caste and politics share a relationship which is in one way direction only, perhaps in Indian context both are interconnected with each other. They come as a tool to further each other’s interest.

First let’s consider case of caste affecting political decision-making? Caste system in India is a system of social stratification and this stratification is based on idea of high and low birth. Not only caste signifies one’s place in social hierarchy but it also indicates power equation among castes placed on different status and politics here connotes the behavior within and with reference to the system of distribution of power in a society.

There is widely prevalent view that caste affects the use and distribution of the power and the ways and means of achieving it to degree that vitiates the working of the political system. The political behavior of the people, of the member of different parties and of the member of the Government is caste oriented or influenced by the caste consideration.

When we say that caste affect political behavior, generally reference is to all those political decisions based on the caste consideration. Popular belief is that people belong to one caste vote en bloc. Even if they don’t vote en bloc, they prefer a candidate of their own caste to other candidates irrespective of merits and demerits of the candidates. Selection of candidates for a constituency also depends on whether he or she will be able to get the support of a particular caste. After the election distribution of ministerial births are often done on basis of caste considerations.

But there is danger here to assume that only those candidates win the election that belong to majority caste of a constituency, because if it was true candidates of some of small castes would have never won elections. So what are the factors behind voter behavior? It may be possible that caste hierarchy is playing role here. Voter may observe that Brahmin knows things better than the other castes. This is different from saying that Brahmin is an educated man. These are the instance of voter behavior influenced by caste hierarchy.

Now let’s look at opposite direction. Why do castes feel compel to participate in political process and achieve as much as bargaining power as they can? Every caste believes that, irrespective of its position in traditional stratification, it is eligible for participation in decision-making process. This phenomenon undermines the traditional hierarchy and indicates caste solidarity. It is observed that a particular caste supports that party which promises to take care of its interest after winning the election.

Caste movement in different parts of India can help to build an understanding on the issue of castes using politics to climb the power ladder. In case of South India caste movement were started even before the Independence. There politics was based on anti-brahminism. This mantra proved very successful. As now if we look at the lists of winning candidates in recently held legislative elections, it becomes clear that it is very difficult for a Brahmin candidate to win election. Only Brahmin candidate who was able to win the election is Jaylalitha, chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Main beneficiaries of this “politics of extreme” were that castes which own the land. Other Southern states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are not much different from Tamil Nadu. In case of Karnataka, Vokkaligas and Lingayats are the castes which dominate the politics.

Political parties do their best to appease these castes and election largely depends on the fact that if party gets support of these castes or not. Generally these two castes support opposite parties. In Andhra Pradesh politics revolves around Reddy vs Kamma equation. Sometimes they don’t hesitate in retorting to violence to further their interests. Merits and demerits are of no value here. Unlike the South, caste movements were not successful in North.

Most often lower castes have fallen in hand of the same system it wished to contest. The yadavs traced their ancestry to Lord Krishna while kurmis and Koris claimed Kshatriya status. These common ancestral ties did not facilitate the formation of caste federation like Gujarat and it also prevented these castes to behave like a monolithic caste group. But it does not mean that caste were not in play in the politics.

Under the guise of quota and Kisan politics, some parties emerged as a major player in state politics. Days of Congress rule were gone and parties like SP, RJD, BSP, JDU came as front-runner for power position. In UP, all parties tend to play caste cards. Mulayam Singh consolidated other backward castes and Muslims under his party and came into power three times. BJP had to depend on the votes of forward class and other backward castes like Lodhi. BSP depended on its core Dalit votes.

Every time it resulted in a hang assembly. Only in 2007, BSP headed by Mayawati managed to secure a clear majority with around 36 per cent votes. She was successful in getting support of Brahmins, scheduled castes and other backward castes barring Yadavs. In Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav completed three times with the help of “MY (muslim-yadav)” factor. There was clear division between forward castes and other backward castes. Nitish Kumar managed to defeat Lalu because he used Lalu’s strategy with adding some more castes in his alliance.

North Indian politics is presently experiencing a “silent revolution”. The rise of lower castes in north Indian politics in the last two decade has gradually transferred power from “upper castes elites to various subaltern groups”. The irony of situation is that political mobilization along caste lines or quota politics, which is keys to lower caste empowerment, has slowed down democratic process. It is characterized by populism and disengagement with ideology in the blind quest for power.

Recently there have been some instances where factor like development are being mentioned in manifestos of different political parties. It is observed that people become disenchanted with castes as their education level and prosperity increase. Then they take political decision more rationally. Until society becomes educated and inequality perishes, caste will keep playing decisive role in politics.

Discuss the difference between following three concepts: coercion, dominance and hegemony. Do these concepts help us in understanding post-colonial state and politics in India? If yes, then how, if not, then why not?

Coercion is a complex phenomenon. It occurs in both interpersonal or institutional or political contexts. Here we are primarily concerned with coercion in political context. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary ‘coercion’ is “to restrain or dominate by force”. It is also defined as “to compel to an act or choice”. It is a defining characteristic of a state. It guarantees the reproduction of domination and order and suppresses challenges to state authority. In the course of time, it helps to create conditions that allow for voluntarily obedience to state and its legitimation. In traditional Marxist theory coercion and force were described as the basic components of ruling class domination. Marx’s basic division of society into a base represented by the economic structure and a superstructure represented by the institutions and beliefs prevalent in society was accepted by most Marxists familiar with the concepts. Gramsci, like a true Marxist, took this a step further when he divided the superstructure into those institutions that were overtly coercive and those that were not. The coercive ones, which were basically the public institutions such as the government, police, armed forces and the legal system he regarded as the state or political society and the non-coercive ones were the others such as the churches, the schools, trade unions, political parties, cultural associations, clubs, the family etc. which he regarded as civil society.

Gramsci felt that what was missing was an understanding of the subtle but pervasive forms of ideological control and manipulation that served to perpetuate all repressive structures. He identified two quite distinct forms of political control: domination, which referred to direct physical coercion by police and armed forces and hegemony which referred to both ideological control and more crucially, consent. He assumed that no regime, regardless of how authoritarian it might be, could sustain itself primarily through organised state power and armed force. In the long run, it had to have popular support and legitimacy in order to maintain stability.

By hegemony, Gramsci meant the permeation throughout society of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the effect of supporting the status quo in power relations. Hegemony in this sense might be defined as a ‘organising principle’ that is diffused by the process of socialization into every area of daily life. To the extent that this prevailing consciousness is internalized by the population it becomes part of what is generally called ‘common sense’ so that the philosophy, culture and morality of the ruling elite comes to appear as the natural order of things.

In countries like India the process of reproduction of capital depends crucially on the state. Although the state-capital connection has been extensively studied in empirical economic terms, surprisingly little theoretical use has been made of this in the study of the Indian state. Still, some minimal generalisations can be made as starting points of a political enquiry. According to Sudipta Kaviraj the state in India is a bourgeois state in at least three, mutually supportive senses.( i) When we say that a state is ‘bourgeois’ this refers in some way to a state of dominance enjoyed by the capitalist class, or a coalition of classes dominated by the bourgeoisie. (ii) The state-form is bourgeois,, the sense in which we speak of the parliamentary democratic form as being historically a bourgeois form of government. This is not just a matter of registering that such forms historically arose during the period of rising capitalism in Europe and spread out through a process of cultural diffusion. Rather, the Marxist view would posit a stronger structural connection between bourgeois hegemony (or domination) and this form of the state. (iii) The state expresses anti ensure the domination of the bourgeoisie and helps in capitalist reproduction and a subordinate reproduction of other types of economic relations by imposing on the economy a deliberate order of capitalist planning. Those directive functions that capital, cannot per-form through the bourgeois state performs through the legitimise directive mechanisms of the state.

We can understand hegemony, dominance and coercion with the subsequent electoral politics in India.

First phase- Congressism: dominance of savarna jatis and landlords

First phase of electoral politics was of congress dominance. Congress represented the concerns of savarna jatis and big land lords. The one party dominance of Congress meant that the election in this period were not seriously competitive in this period marked by a low level of electoral participation. The choice was between the omnipresent Congress and its regionally fragmented opposition, often opposition came from within the Congress. Electoral politics were fixed at the national level unless the constituency level preferences dictated short time deviations from it.

In social terms the castes that enjoyed the benefits of early entry into modem education or early politicisation through the national movement or both dominated the list of elected representatives. The 1967 election had already signalled a transition, for the monopoly of the Congress and the savarna jatis was challenged for the first time in north India. The process had started much earlier in the south.

Second phase Anti-Congressism

Although Indira Gandhi’s unprecedented electoral victory in the 1971 election was initially seen as the restoration of the Congress dominance, in retrospect that election looks like a beginning of the second electoral system. The apparent continuity of the Congress was deceptive. The Congress that Indira Gandhi led to power in 1971 was a new party that had to negotiate a new terrain of electoral politics. The move towards the new system was triggered off by the first democratic upsurge in the late 1960s. The upsurge brought a great many new entrants from the’ middle’ castes or the OBCs into the game of electoral politics and turned it truly competitive.

Congress was no longer the single dominant party but throughout the 1970s and 1980s it continued to the natural party of governance, the pole around which electoral competition was organised. The success or the failure of the attempts by the ‘opposition’ to put up a united front against the Congress made a decisive difference to the electoral outcome.

Third phase Rise of new political classes and end of congress dominance

The decisive stimulus for change came between the 1989 and the 1991 in what was christened as the three M s of Indian politics: Mandal, Mandir and Market. The almost simultaneous and sudden occurrence of these three events – the implementation of the Mandal Commission’s recommendations for OBC reservations, the BJP’s rath yatra that catapulted the Babari masjid dispute into national prominence and the forex crisis leading to the implementation of the first phase of IMF sponsored package of ‘liberalisation created an extraordinary opportunity for reworking the established political alignments. All the three offered the possibility of creating a new cleavage that cut across the established cleavage structure and thus engaging in a new kind of political mobilisation. Eventually, not all the three cleavages could be activated in politics, at least not in the same degree. But the simultaneity of this change did result in a transition of the electoral system and allowed several latent forces to surface in electoral politics.

The 1991 verdict finally inaugurated the new system. The earlier logic of regime alteration and that of Congress victory in the context of divided opposition clearly indicated a massive victory for the Congress in 1991, a repetition of the 1980 wave. But it did not happen.

The raw narratives of social justice articulated by a Kanshi Ram or a Laloo Prasad Yadav achieved what Lohia’s sophisticated philosophy of history failed to do three decades ago, namely to make it respectable to talk about caste in the public-political domain. The emergence of ‘social justice’ as a rubric to talk about caste equity, political representation of castes and communities and issues of communitarian self-respect and identity is a distinct achievement of this period.

Pakistan: Jinnah vs Jia-ul-haq

“Some day I wonder I should live in Pakistan again. I am sorry but 4th January, 2011 is not one of those days.” A Pakistani youth commented on a social media platform. Assassination of senior PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party) leader and Governor of Pakistani Punjab province Salmaan Taseer sent a shock wave to whole progressive and liberal community in Pakistan. Despite I am living in India,in a comparatively safe and tolerant (it is disputable) country, I was shocked and flabbergasted hearing this piece of the news. I was not a big fan of him as I quite disliked his comments on Kashmir. But I certainly have a respect for his support of a liberal Pakistan. After Asia Bibi episode, I started following him rigorously. If his assassination was a sad news for me, its a horrendous news for Pakistani society especially ever contracting liberal minded people. The Killing of Taseer signifies deep divide in Pakistani society. Its now becoming more and more dysfunctional society. Most astonishing aspect of this was support for killer of Taseer on social media platform like Facebook and Twitter. This clearly indicate that how Islamization of Pakistan started by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq has taken deep route in the conscience of common man in Pakistan. Continuous denial of Pakistani Government of any extremist group present there has made thing worse. Patronage of Army have given free run to these Islamic Fundamentalist organizations. It is notable that these non-state actors were given prominence in a view to waging war against India, but now they are playing the frankenstein to their own masters.
If we apply realistic optimism here, It will be very short-sighted and myopic to focus on only one aspects of all holes in Pakistan. But this assassination is a stark reminder to Pakistan’s urban english speaking community that realities of Pakistan in new year are intimidating and gut-wrenching. If they remain silent, their freedom will be non-existence in some times. Pakistan is in desperate need of a viable counter-weight to the irrational and frankly un-Islamic voices of religious extremism that dominate religious discourse in the country. That is not a year-long fight. It is an inter-generational struggle.
Pakistani is also in need of urgent reforms to the legal and judicial system that allows and in many ways encourages mindless vigilantism. That too is a not a fight that can be won quickly. Enabling parliamentarians to feel secure and confident in making changes just got even harder with Taseer’s assassination.
The cancer of fanaticism that consumed Taseer’s life is a product of two generations of Pakistani state actions, starting with General Zia-ul Haq’s offering up the country as an assembly line of warriors for the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and continuing with General Pervez Musharraf’s offering up the same country as a staging ground for a war against those very warriors. The role of the war in Afghanistan and America’s presence in the region is inescapable. It has helped catalyze and deepen the pre-existing groundswell of a radicalized the mainstream Pakistani narrative. This mess has been more than thirty years in the making. It is clear that no amount of externally-stimulated counterinsurgency or counter-terrorism will do the trick. More is needed, much more. And all of it has to be organic and local.

Salmaan Taseer’s assassination raises legitimate questions about the viability of this struggle and its success. On an already cold and tragic day in Islamabad, that represents a devastating reality.
If Jinnah were alive today, he would have been greatly saddened by the state of Pakistan. He always envisaged for a democratic and secular Pakistan. He said in a speech to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947 ,” You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State.You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
Now assassination of Taseer has given a ultimatum to Pakistani society, they will have to choose between Pakistan of Jinnah and a Pakistan of Jia-ul-haq. This time making a choice is mandatory.

Gujjar agitation: Grammar of anarchy and blackmail

There is a saying that Government or System never respond, it always react. If you are watching development in Indian politics keenly, you will be stunned by its bizarre responsiveness. If any organization restore to illegal ways or take the route of violence taking seize of government houses, offices or public buildings, or ransacking public properties like buses, trains, post-offices, Government whether Central or State usually acquiesced to its demand. Unfortunately it has now become a routine drive. This is what Gujjar’s are doing in Rajasthan. I am not questioning their demand of 5 percent reservation in government jobs and educational institutions. I am questioning the way they are pressing for their demand. This agitation started in 2007, has claimed over 70 lives so far. Thousands of protesters are blocking Delhi- Mumbai and Jaipur-Agra rail route. This has taken toll on those people who travel between Delhi and Mumbai for business purpose. It has also affected the highways and State transport department cancelled many buses. Ongoing confrontation has become a nightmare for tourism industry in state. State government response to this crisis has been far from satisfying. Sometimes it overreacted like on 23 may, 2008 when agitating lynched a police man and in response police shot at protesters as they tried to damage railway lines and public property. At least 15 people died on spot. Later state government had to call Army to quell the violence as another 15 people were killed when police shot at mob protesters trying to torch a police station in Sikandra. It under-reacted every time blaming opposition parties for creating unrest among Gujjars. This impasse finally ended when Vashundhara Raje government agreed to give five percent reservation to Gujjars under a new special category.

Later with the change of government, Gujjars again intensified their demand, this time for scheduled tribe status as been accorded to Meena Community. Leader of Gujjar community and convener of Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti K.L. Bainsala rejected Government’s economic package saying we don’t want any money but a scheduled caste status. In a major jolt for agitating Gujjars, on 22 December the Rajasthan High Court Wednesday rejected a petition seeking five percent reservation in government jobs for the community.The division bench of Chief Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Mahesh Bhagwati held that Gujjars could not be given special reservation.The court said that the government failed to justify the basis on which the community should be provided such special reservation. The judges said that the government could continue to provide one percent reservation for Gujjars in government jobs. It was given under special backward class category. Court directed government to carry out fresh data collection drive to ascertain economic and educational backwardness of Gujjar community.

This crisis is so intriguing that political analyst are finding it very hard to dispel any solution on it. Pratap Bhanu Mehta gets his fact very right. In his thoughtful article in Indian Express he writes, “The Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan is a microcosm of the absurdities of the Indian state. The state has been, for years, wishing this crisis away. But the agitation keeps recurring with dependable regularity. The simple explanation for the crisis is as a predictable product of the fatal conjunction of identity politics and distributive justice that the Indian state has been promoting. This politics is premised on the fact that caste remains the salient mechanism through which concessions are extracted from the state. The ability of groups to extract such mechanisms no longer rests on claims of justice, but on the sheer flexing of muscle power. It is on this basis that Jats got reservations. And the only legitimate lesson for the Gujjars to draw was that, for the state to take them seriously, they had to compensate for their lack of political power with a politics of violent disruption.”

He further puts it, “The blunt truth is there is no solution to the Gurjjar problem within the current framework of reservations; and more cases like this will come up.But the story gets even more bizarre. The state government will not hesitate to promise anything, no matter how absurd and unimplementable. The Gujjars in turn, with each successive negotiation, come to trust the state even less. The current agitation has been given new life by the fact that there is going to be a massive expansion in state recruitment in Rajasthan. This should be a wake-up call to those who had naïvely assumed that state jobs no longer matter for our politics. Even the momentum behind the Telangana movement comes, in part, from a desire to a greater share of state jobs. But the Gujjars are finding that even the one per cent quota they have been promised is being variously interpreted and implemented. What is the unit of analysis within which this one per cent is to be implemented? The categories and sub-categories of jobs have been spliced up in ways that have sown suspicion amongst them about exactly what this one per cent would entail. Meanwhile, the larger political vacuum continues.”

Binayak Sen: a “Prisoner of Conscience”

On Saturday I woke up to the news of a lower court sentencing life term to celebrated doctor and national Vice-President of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Binayak Sen. Court found him guilty of criminal conspiracy to commit sedition, under Section 124(a) read with 20 (b) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). I was shocked and bemused by this piece of news. I questioned myself “are we really living in so called World’s “biggest democracy”. what is the meaning of “Freedom” and for for whom it was conceptualized. When many hard core criminal are enjoying freedom and even entered politics, our justice system is handing out life imprisonment to a doctor working for poor and downtrodden. He has been charged on the basis of flawed evidence. What can be a deeply sorry state of our democracy more than this.Now the Higher Courts have great responsibility to negate this judgement. Supreme court also held that that the charge of sedition can be upheld only if the prosecution proves that the accused attempted to incite violence or public disorder. It is clear that this case doesn’t meet that standard.

Extremely talented, Dr Sen has been the topper of Vellore Medical College. Instead of serving in cozy private hospitals in metropolitan cities, he established his clinic in tribal areas of Chhattisgarh extending health care to poor people. In his individual capacity, he helped organize numerous alleged human rights violations investigations in name of anti-Naxal operations, including murder of unarmed and innocent civilians by government supported guerrilla outfit Salva Judum. Sen never supported violent methods of Naxalites and even several times strongly condemned them. Yet he was and has been sympathetic or felt empathy for their demands and needs. He always supported peaceful negotiations as a viable way to solve naxalites problem. His time to time expose of alleged human rights violation by security forces and Salva Judum made him quite infamous with administration and security hawks. In May 2007, he was detained for allegedly supporting the outlawed Naxalites, thereby violating the provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 (CSPSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967. Sen first applied for bail before the Raipur Sessions Court and then the Chhattisgarh High Court in July 2007, soon after his arrest, but was granted bail by the Supreme Court of India only on 25 May 2009 following a huge outrage by Human Rights institutions and right-minded civil society members . This time his conviction in lower court is based on flawed evidences. Chhattisgarh government officials willfully created false evidences and some of them backtracked during hearing process. Chhattisgarh police presented a email written by Sen's wife Illena Sen to ISI. As Illena clarified it was actually Delhi based NGO Indian Social Institute with she did email correspondence. Chhattisgarh Police linked this mail to Pakistan's external spy agency ISI. Now I hope that a righteous sense should prevail to Higher Judiciary and look into this matter as an independent view applying international standards. I am sure our Higher judiciary will certainly do it.