Finally they free Dr. Sen

Dr. Binayak Sen has been granted bail, after long two years. That's a major victory for the humanrights movement in India. But the (false and fabricated) case id still on. The case is an "index" case. It clearly shows up how draconian laws are can be and are actually misused. And how stupendously difficult it would be for a lesser being! And even Dr. Binayak Sen, with 22 Nobel laureates appealing, national and international medical community protesting, foreign governments making queries, retired Supreme Court judge appealing, it took two long years just to obtain a simple bail, which as per the Supreme Court directive should be norm, not an exception. This again shows up the the huge irrational arbitrary powers that the "state" is invested with to crush an ordinary citizen, and a dissenting voice, in particular. This small but significant victory must reenergise the human rights movement in India. We must mobilise ourselves to firmly demand that the Central government must immediately initiate action to create a legal framework to subscribe to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in toto.

Tomorrow it would be you and me...

Am I safe in India?

Dr. Binayak Sen's incarceration is has trigged out a lot of public outcry. A doctor who works for the cause of tribals and poor people has been pushed down and locked up. His charge is that he works for the cause of the poor, his charge is that he and his wife dared to work with people whom the State thought they could just overlook, his charge was that he raised his voice against the injustice happening in Chatisgarh, against Salwa Jugum [Salwa Judum (translates as "Peace March") is a anti- Naxalite movement in Chhatisgarh, India, which started in 2005 as a "civilian movement amongst the tribals of the region", and later evolved into a militia as a counter-insurgency strategy in the ,to bring the area dominated by Naxalites (Indian Maoists rebels), back under government control.]

The police arrested him with the charge that he passes letter to naxalites but they have not been able to prove a single charge against him. He has been denied bail all the time. I am waiting what the Supreme Court now gives him.

This doctor is arrested and kept in prison, tomorrow it will be you and me. Tomorrow you and me can be arrested for being human rights activits. Tomorrow I can be arrested by charging me. I work with prisoners and this can activism of mine could be altogether made to stop by simply incarcerating me using a draconian law.

I kept telling my collegue Sana yesterday, "Atleast people know Dr.Binayak Sen.. Who would know Ms. Reena Mary George if she is arrested someday?" We need to voice out our opposition towards the arrest of Dr. Sen because today it is him -- a human rights activits, tomorrow it would be you and me....

Binayak Sen

India is the largest democracy! But the question is ... Is it really democracy or dictatorship??How can a doctor (Dr.Binayak Sen) who works with the tribals and common people's causes be incarcerated for two long years without anything proved against him. The police claims that he passed on letters to naxals!!

I am sure, if this is the way India is 'progressing', then people like me will end up in prisons as well. Atleast Binayak Sen is a largely known public figure... Who would know any Reena Mary George... who works for the rights of prisoners??? Some day they might just not want me to work for the cause of prisoners and charge me with some absolutely nonsense case and incarcerate me as well... Are we, human rights activits really safe in a country like India where the State players do not want any development in this country, where the State players want to put down human rights activists like Binayak Sen behind bars, where the the State players do not want to uphold human dignity? Am i safe in this country?

It is time... that we fight back and not be silent... One of the poems I heard yesterday at Dhuru Hall, Dadar (A programme organised by the 'Release Binayak Sen Committee') it said... Keeping quite is the biggest mistake we all do... When things go wrong and nothing moves within us..then that is the biggest mistake... lovely poems read by contemporary, progressive readers...

I would lose hope in the Criminal Justice System of India if Binayak Sen is not given bail this time by Supreme Court of India.

Ain't I a Woman?

Truth delivered her best-known speech in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. The speech has become known as Ain't I a Woman? after Truth's refrain.

The speech as shown here has been revised from the 19th century dialect in which Truth spoke.
“ Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne five children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.”
--Sojourner Truth

Was it my vote?!

So just who are you Judge?And just who are you President?

Who made you the Honourable Judge?Who made you the Honourable President?In My Democracy.
Was it my vote?!

So just how much did you know 14-year-old Hetal Parekh, Mr. Judge,(just so we know how much you felt for her)And just how much did you know Dhananjoy Chatterjee?
The same questions to you to Mr. President.

In what judgment did you sit Mr. Judge?Was it legal, was it moral?
Did you give life to Hetal Parekh, Mr. Judge?Did you give life to Dhananjoy Chatterjee?Maybe you did Mr. President?Did you?

What is "life", to you Mr. Judge?And when does it become precious, Mr. President?
Whom did you hang, when 15,310 people died in Bhopal and 300,000 were maimed by Union Carbide?How many people did you hang when the Children of Kumbakonam roasted in their school?Where did you hang the officials, who rotted grain and caused starvation deaths in Orissa, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and in many other states of India?Why didn't you hang the politicians of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra whose "politics" have caused scores of debt-ridden farmers to kill themselves?And whom do we hang for the destruction the nuclear tests have brought, on a poor tribal community in Rajasthan?

So just who are you Mr. Judge?And just who are you Mr. President? Who made you Judge?Who made you President?In my democracy.
Was it my vote?!

- by Lillian D' Costa

(This a poem found in a christian magazine... by Lillian D' Costa... a very well written poem...I would probably ask Mr. Abdul Kalam the same questions if i meet him....)

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.-- M.K. Gandhi

We must inaugurate the Age of Enlightenment and invincibility of society against crime pathology by creating the integrated man. All else, including death penalty, is criminological quackery and jurisprudential philistinism. Law must outlaw the delusive drug of the condemned cell. Our undertaking must be geared to this goal. Our penal code provides for capital punishment for wide range of offence. But sadly, the death penalty has never reduced these crimes in the country.
-- Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, Judge of the Supreme Court of India.

Death penalty is irrevocable; it cannot be recalled. It is destructive of the right to life. Howsoever careful may be the procedural safeguards erected by the law before the penalty is imposed. It is impossible to eliminate the chance of judicial error. One innocent man being hanged should be enough to wipe out the value of capital punishment for ever.
-- P. N. Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of India.


I was eight years old when my father was murdered. But even as a child one thing was clear to me: I didn't want the killer, in turn, to be killed. I can remember lying in bed and praying, 'Please, God. Please don’t let them kill him.' I saw nothing that could be accomplished in the loss of one life being answered with the loss of another. And I knew, far too vividly, the anguish that would spread through another family-another set of parents, children, brothers, and sisters thrown into grief.
-- Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, daughter of Robert F. Kennedy.

There is no way of constructing a system that will not execute the innocent. The death penalty does not make us safer. That is a lie.
-- Michael O'Connor, Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, The Saint Cloud Visitor, 3/4/2004.


People are willing to concede that it [the death penalty] is just pure revenge and they’re willing to live with that.
-- Hunter Labovitz, Tallahassee attorney.


Even if there's just one person on death row that's innocent, just one that should be enough to take a look at the system ... It's on everybody's hands if we execute somebody who's innocent. The system didn't free me. God did. God manifested the truth.
-- Darryl Eugene Hunt, twice convicted of a 1984 murder and sentenced to life, exonerated in February 2004 when another man confessed to the murder, (1) The Courier-Tribune, 4/27/2004, (2) NBC17 News, 5/12/2004.


Who tries to ease the pain for the parents of the condemned? Who tells us that they are sorry and remorseful for the death of our child? Does the state consider us, the parents, siblings and family of the condemned, as victims? No, they do not. But as surely as I live and breathe, we are the victims who have all the grief and none of the closure.
-- Lyndia Faihtinger, mother of death row inmate Norman R. Clary, letter to the editor, Houston Press, 10/18/2002.


War, capital punishment, the taking of human life, cruelty of all kinds whether committed by the individual, the State or society, not only physical cruelty, but moral cruelty, the degradation of any human being or any class of human beings under whatever specious plea or in whatever interest, ... are crimes against the religion of humanity, abominable to its ethical mind, forbidden by its primary tenets, to be fought against always, in no degree to be tolerated.
-- Sri Aurobindo, Indian politician, philosopher (1872-1950).


A great deal of controversy has attended the question of abolition of the death penalty. Arguments both in favour and against can never settle the question. To my mind, it is ultimately a question of respect for life and human approach to those who commit grievous hurts to others. Death sentence is no remedy for such crimes. A more humane and constructive remedy is to remove the culprit concerned from the normal milieu and treat him as a mental case. I am sure a large proportion of the murderers could be weaned away from their path and their mental condition sufficiently improved to become useful citizens. In a minority of cases, this may not be possible. They may be kept in prison houses till they die a natural death. This may cause a heavier economic burden on society than hanging. But I have no doubt that a humane treatment even of a murderer will enhance man's dignity and make society more human.
- Jaya Prakash Narayan (1902-2002), Indian political leader and theorist.


Must we kill to prevent there being any wicked? This is to make both parties wicked instead of one.
-- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), French mathematician.


[F]or a doctor to use the tools and expertise they use to treat patients to kill people is a perversion of medical practice. There are people who do such horrendous things, the most horrific, deadly crimes that I don't think they deserve to live. But that's different from saying, 'Well, let's kill them.'
-- Dr. Arthur Zitrin, former director of psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital and chairman of the Dean's Committee on Medical Ethics at New York University, about the participation of doctors in executions, New York Daily News, 5/10/2004.



The application of the death penalty mostly closely resembles the lottery.
-- Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, Manhattan, NY; (3) AP, 12/15/2004; (4) Column, Sheryl McCarthy, Newsday, Inc., 12/16/2004.


My primary concern is not compassion for the murderer. My concern is for the society which adopts vengeance as an acceptable motive for its collective behaviour. If we make that choice, we will snuff out some of that boundless hope and confidence in ourselves and other people, which has marked our maturing as free people.
--Pierre Elliott Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada.

To repay brutality with brutality, in any manner does not serve any useful purpose.
--President Sir Dawda Jawara, Gambia.

The fruit of my experience has this bitter after-taste: that I do not now believe that any one of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge.
-- Albert Pierrepoint, former executioner, UK

Mumbai meri Jaan

Is it going to be same after two years? Another tragedy. The loss we had during the bomb blast the railway station. Terrorist will find new ways and means to attack us. My question to you is, “are our systems in place to tackle these terrorists again?” please do not divide us in the name of religion,

Mr. Raj Thackeray, do not divide us in the name of outsiders and insider. I am very much an insider as you are. And mind you the so called ‘outsiders’ came to save our city. We are Indians first and then anyone else. I would call myself an Indian living in Mumbai. Wondering where you went hiding during this entire process!

My question to Modi, Is the 1 crore his government will offer Mr. Karkare’s family a price paid to heave a sigh of relief that, “At last somebody killed him!” Get out of my city Mr. Modi.

Mr. Advani, stop blaming the current government. Rather join hands with them to tackle the situation together. Atleast for once in your life share a common platform to tackle this situation in our country.

Mr. Prime Minister, what will happen if the laws are stringent? Aren’t there good enough laws already? We don’t want more laws rather train our men and women to combat such highly trained terrorists
Mr. Dutt, very grateful to you for saving my city. Your men, (weren’t there any women officers?) have done a very commendable job. I salute all the heroes of this war.
My heart goes out to the families of the officers who lost their lives in this terror. My heart goes out to the families of individuals who lost their lives; my heart goes out to the little child who lost his parents a day before his 2nd birthday.

Journalists! Kindly be unbiased while covering news... why is CST left uncovered by any of you? Taj is the icon of whose India?

(Was written immediately after the terror attack however couldn't post it on the blog)