In memory of GN Saibaba, whom the state imprisoned for ten years

No matter how serious a crime is, or how big a gangster is, they are not put in the anda (egg-shaped) cell in Nagpur Central Jail. In the ninety-year history of the prison, I think I was the only one who was put there: Dr. GN Saibaba.

On a dull day in May 2014, a pack of police officers stopped a car to tow away a wheelchair-bound literature professor. The events that followed do not deserve the term boring. What former Delhi University professor Dr GN Saibaba experienced for ten years from May 9 to March this year was aptly described by him as an agni pariksha (trial by fire) fueled by the Unlawful Activity (Prevention) Act (UAPA). .

Saibaba, along with five others, was arrested under the draconian UAPA for alleged links with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). It did not matter that the evidence was weak: the prosecution cited bananas, umbrellas and newspapers as objects used by the Naxalites to identify each other and cited the presence of Naxalite literature as “evidence of terrorist activities.”

The accused were charged under five sections of the UAPA read with Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Each time the suspects were acquitted by a lower court, the state appealed to the Supreme Court to ensure that the acquittal was stayed.

In March 2024, Saibaba was released along with four other co-suspects (the fifth, Pandu Narote, died in prison). From then until his death, Saibaba, who was paralyzed by polio, suffered several health crises.

He breathed his last on Saturday, October 12, at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) in Hyderabad, surrounded by doctors who tried to revive his collapsing heart. The professor was pronounced dead at 8:36 p.m. He was 58.

His death warrants returning to a simple but essential question: who is GN Saibaba? Those unfamiliar with his cause can easily call him a ‘Naxal’. But for those who knew him, and for civil society and journalists who followed the case, many glorious splinters stand out and permeate. A staunch human rights activist from the left, a beloved professor and comrade, and a loving husband are the parts that sum up his personality.

An ardent human rights activist

For Saibaba, the dream of becoming a teacher and fighting for social causes first became a reality during his master’s degree at the University of Hyderabad (UoH). Until then his life had been confined to Amalapuram, a town in the erstwhile East Godavari district.

Their idealism led Saibaba and his wife Vasantha, who eventually joined him in Hyderabad, to participate in several mass movements during his PhD, and even afterwards. Saibaba toured various villages in India until 2008 with crutches and the physical assistance of fellow activists and villagers who showed him around.

In 1997, he took part in a seminar at the All India People’s Resistance Forum to shed light on how post-independence India’s achievements were nothing but “a mere transfer of power”. He spoke at length about the need for agrarian movements like those in Chhattisgarh’s Dandakaranya, and in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

As deputy secretary of the now banned Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), Saibaba led the All India People’s Resistance Forum against state repression in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar in 1999. A total of 50 solidarity programs were held in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar for this campaign. , Punjab, Delhi, Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

While part of the academia, Saibaba repelled every state offensive against Adivasis. His criticism of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s Operation Green Hunt was scathing. During the paramilitary offensive carried out in 2009, no distinction was made between gun-bearing militants and Adivasis living in what was called the Red Corridor, that is, certain districts between Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. Saibaba criticized the burning of Adivasi huts, indiscriminate killing of men and rape.

“I have gathered enough evidence to suggest that the ruling class wanted access to (Adivasi) resources no matter what. Operation Green Hunt was launched to kill, maim and displace them,” Saibaba told The Hindu in 2012.

He played a key role in driving the resistance launched by the RDF to prevent investors from taking over tribal land for mining. He was also one of many who pushed for the release of political prisoners like Afzal Guru. He protested in favor of SC, ST and OBC students for proper implementation of reservation policy in Delhi University.

In 2021, Delhi University terminated his employment following the UAPA case against him. However, he was not reinstated after his acquittal.

After his release, Saibaba wanted to work on education for the marginalized.

“If you look at the current state of the education system, you will see that government schools and colleges are being left to the SC, ST and OBC students. All private and central educational institutions are meant for the elite population of the country. Dalit and Adivasi students do not have access to these institutions, these liberal universities, and they face constant discrimination in these spaces. This must change. The Dalit and Adivasi students are being pushed to government schools. The shiny corporate universities and central universities are for the rich. As a result, students from the marginalized communities are suffering,” he shared in March 2024.

In August 2024, Saibaba told the media in Hyderabad that if there was one wish he wanted to fulfill, it was to teach in a classroom again. Unfortunately, that dream died with him.

Attacked by the state

For Saibaba’s supporters, it is indisputable that it was his decade-long incarceration that led to his deteriorating health and painful death. At a cultural event held in Hyderabad last month, Saibaba spoke about how the jail authorities would take him to the hospital for appearances only to immediately take him back to the anda cell without proper medical attention. “They didn’t give me the medicine I needed. They gave me sleeping pills, drugged me constantly and gave me diclofenac for the pain. My left arm was broken during the rough treatment during my arrest, which affected my spine and nervous system,” he said.

His wife Vasantha had spoken at length about how his health was ignored and how he possibly contracted COVID-19 while in jail and was still denied treatment. His paralysis slowly worsened, he underwent gallbladder surgery a week ago and his kidney stopped functioning the day before his death.

Saibaba’s story is not the first account of the state’s attack on a human body. In fact, the physiological torture of political prisoners imprisoned under the UAPA is hardly news. In November 2020, tribal rights activist Stan Swamy was denied a sipper and straw despite dealing with Parkinson’s disease, which causes involuntary muscle spasms. Swamy died in jail after being denied bail on several counts.

After Swamy’s death, Saibaba wrote to Vasantha, “You may hear from another Stan Swamy if treatment is not provided (for me).”

A political divorce

The story of Saibaba’s incarceration is also the story of Vasantha’s trials.

“Sai, do you remember?” she once wrote to him in prison: “When we first met in grade 10, you were having trouble solving some questions in math. I was the one who taught you how to solve them. In turn, you taught me English grammar. It was very difficult for us in our adolescence to stay apart without seeing each other for even four days! Look at where things stand now: we have to stay apart, with countless obstacles and hundreds of miles blocking our meetings for who knows how long.”

Vasantha told me in 2021 that it was always difficult to meet Saibaba in prison. “I don’t speak English well. They did not allow us to speak in Telugu. So several meetings went by without much being said.” She quickly added, “But no matter what, I refuse to cry. Even a single tear will be all the testimony the authorities need to flaunt their victory. I don’t want that.”

In several interviews, Vasantha has spoken about their all-encompassing love for each other. As a partnership, it was and continues to be equally committed to social justice, keeping a part of Saibaba alive today.

His collection of prison poems and essays begins with Vasantha’s ‘Introduction: Letter to Sai’. She recounted how they read Tagore, Premchand, Periyar, Ranganayakkam and several other revolutionaries together, buoyed by the confidence that “a new society would certainly emerge, in which caste differences, religious differences and gender discrimination would perish.”

A literary man, in his own words

In several speeches since his release, Saibaba emphasized that literature, especially poetry, is the only medium that can withstand pain. “At first I felt anger about how unfairly I was being treated in prison. But then I met others: people imprisoned for stealing food, a man who died before my eyes, people charged with crimes out of necessity. To translate and explain all that, only poetry as a medium was sufficient,” he noted.

Saibaba spoke of a certain poetic empathy that replaced, or rather made universal, his anger. As the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o wrote about Saibaba in the essay ‘A continuing ode to life’: ‘His personal fear of being uprooted from his family and community also becomes that of the farmers and Adivasi people who fear their land is uprooted to make way for space. for mining companies.”

This is correct if the deceased professor informed the grievers:

The world of love is taking shape

in your fight for it

or when he pleads for verse:

It’s poetry, stupid

It’s amazing poetry

No weapons are needed

Smelling the iron heels of history.

GN Saibaba’s trifecta of love, struggle and literature is summed up in his letter to Anjum, the Muslim transfeminine character from Arundhati Roy’s novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, to whom he wrote from prison.

“You are a unique person in the history of human society. That is why I ask you to work for my freedom. Who else could be the right person to campaign for my release? I am sure you will definitely support my cause.”

This report comes from The News Minute as part of The News Minute-Newslaundry alliance. to support our work.

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