Inside Chhattisgarh

A Political Memoir

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A rare portrait of Chhattisgarh, its people and its development

For thirty years, until his conviction in 2010 by the High Court, pediatrician Binayak Sen and his sociologist wife Ilina worked among people in Chhattisgarh’s tribal heartland. They came here seeking fresh ideas for change-and stayed on.

This fascinating memoir illuminates their journey and how their world imploded. Ilina vividly describes their years at the trade union CMSS, led by the iconic Shankar Guha Niyogi, where Binayak and three doctors started a hospital, and she organized workers’ education, joined the feisty women mineworkers’ struggles, and discovered the rich local history and cultural and farming traditions. These experiences later found expression in Rupantar, their own NGO, and when the new state’s government sought their advice for its women’s policy and for Mitanan, a precursor of the National Rural Health Mission.

Candid and deeply felt, the book celebrates Chhattisgarh but also laments the lost opportunity for its inclusive and violence-free development.