by JYOTI PUNWANI
The conviction wasn’t unexpected. Too much was at stake in this particular prosecution that had invited international attention. What was unexpected was the sentence. A day after the verdict, Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwa Ranjan looked suitably impassive while commenting on the conviction of Dr Binayak Sen on TV, but surely this would have been a memorable X’Mas for this ‘poet-policeman’. A life sentence for the man because of whom he had had to tolerate all that hatred from people like him — he with his love for the liberal arts, and a St Stephen’s background.
Now finally, the soft-spoken doctor would stop giving interviews about the state’s military campaign against the poor. Everyone else had been dealt with. Dantewada and Bastar became a ‘no-go’ zone where troops carrying out Operation Green Hunt against the Maoists were the only outsiders allowed. What was going on in those jungles? No news came out. Just one man kept fighting there, former CPI MLA Manish Kunjam, but he was reminded again and again that in Chhattisgarh, anyone who dared work openly among the Adivasis would be treated like a criminal. His party leaders were jailed on charges of murder, Adivasis going for his rallies assaulted.
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(Thanks to Mukul Dube)