Some thoughts about Binayak Sen

Much has been written about Binayak Sen's incarceration, most recently by Harsh Mander in today's Hindu. I know next to nothing about the case and a superficial trawling of the net has produced little more than what has already been reported. In general my sympathies lie with those who have been unfairly found to be at the wrong end of the full majesty of the law (and frequently the majesty is found to be without clothes). In this respect however, there are a couple of facts that I couldn't help noticing. Even assuming that the Chattisgarh High Court has a partisan view of the matter, why is it that the Supreme Court of India has seen fit to reject his bail application? Assuming that the Supreme Court is not equally partisan (after all, in recent times, the highest court of the land has seen fit to overturn or put a stay on numerous decisions of the Government) is there something more to this case than meets the eye? Secondly, in the list of Nobel Laureates who have signed the petition to free him, a conspicuous missing name is that of Amartya Sen. For someone who has always been at the forefront in the defense of democratic values, his absence from the list of signatories is indeed odd. (Curiously, there are a couple of well known physicists in the list -- Cohen-Tannoudji and Charles Townes - I wonder how much they really know of this case). The comrades are, of course, mostly absent from the list of those calling for Dr Sen's release (unless one counts an editorial in The Hindu asking that he be released). This is not surprising considering that they are fighting a bitter battle with the Naxalites in Nandigram and elsewhere and there is clearly no love lost between the 'M' and the 'M-L' . I would appreciate any information or links to information that people might give, which will cast some more light on this issue, beyond what the press and internet (at least superficially) have to offer. However, whatever be his transgressions, there seems no justification for his incarceration for 10 years and all reasonable minded people should agitate against it. For some differing perspectives, look at Gyanoprobha This is a blog run by Gautam Sen, brother of Binayak Sen. It is necessarily a one sided view of the issue but has some pertinent viewpoints with which it is possible to agree. It also has links to differing views which is refreshing. Another article by Dr. Nandini Sundar, Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, blames the Government, Salwa Judum as well as the Naxalites for the uncontrolled violence throughout the state. As she says How does blowing up policemen, shooting at a Collector, attacking camps and destroying schools and transformers, lead to any change in the system?. More recently, I would say, how does attacking innocent train passengers and killing the driver help in furthering the cause of the adivasis, in whose name the Naxals seem to speak. Aside: Leaving out Kashmir, an interesting fact which appears to be true is that Naxal violence has killed more people in India than Islamic terrorism. Frequently Naxal massacres and raids on villages number in the hundreds, compared to numbers in the tens in the case of Islamic terrorism related killings. Are there any sites which give comparative figures? The Naxals also seem better at PR -- many in the intelligentsia think that their cause (and hence their large-scale killing of innocents in their many raids) is more just than that of say, the jehadi terrorists.