GN Saibaba's Life Was Snatched Away By Our Institutions. All of Them

I still stubbornly refuse to die 

The sad thing is that  

They don’t know how to kill me 

Because I love so much 

The sound of growing grass.

- GN Saibaba

Hereafter, I remember these words when I — academician, human rights activist, and an exceptional fighter for the rights of Adivasis and other marginalised communities.

In a world corrupted by authoritarianism and religious extremism, do I have enough words to talk about Saibaba, ? His tragic death and the wrongful incarceration that preceded it affirm the brutality of all those institutions that denied a 90 percent disabled man his fundamental rights.

My tribute to Saibaba should indeed begin with a few words about his mother, Suryavatamma. Like any small farmer, this family too, lost their land and migrated to a nearby town called Amalapuram in East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh. They rented a house close to a school so that they could get their children educated, the one and only dream the poor parents could hold on to.

Suryavatamma would carry her disabled child all the way to the school. She did everything good to make him go to college and earn a degree in English literature. All her dreams were shattered when he was arrested in a false case and labelled as a “Maoist”.

She wanted to see her son one last time before she died of cancer, but the judicial system was ruthless. After his release, Saibaba tearfully recounted how he wasn't even allowed to attend her funeral. In a press conference in Delhi, he said, "Being a disabled child, my mother took me in her arms to school, so that her child could get his education. I was not allowed to see her before her death. I was denied parole. After her death, I was denied parole to attend her funeral."

After his arrest in 2014, Saibaba was accused of having connections with outlawed Maoist organisations and was sentenced to life imprisonment under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in 2017. In 2022, he was acquitted of the charges, with the Bombay High Court openly stating that the evidence to imprison Saibaba under the UAPA was hollow. This acquittal was stayed by the Supreme Court until the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court once again acquitted him and five others in March this year.

Saibaba and his family frequently appealed to the judicial authorities to explain his health. As he mentioned in his memoir, “One after the other, my organs started bursting.” Despite these conditions, the courts and the jail authorities did not cooperate. He was even denied using his mother tongue Telugu during the mulaqats with his wife and daughter.

In a recent judgment, the Supreme Court asserted, “In such cases of clean acquittal crucial years in the life of an accused are lost. In a given case, it may amount to a violation of rights of the accused under Article 21 of the constitution which may give rise to a claim for compensation.”

We lost Saibaba on 12 October. What could possibly be adequate compensation from the system for a man killed by the system? What would those in positions of power, both political and legal, who kept him incarcerated on false charges for 10 years as his body broke down, be thinking today?

I had been in touch with Sai ever since he was released from jail. Incidentally, I started reading his Telugu translations of the poems by Faiz Ahmed Faiz as I was asked to write a preface for the forthcoming collection. That was on 9 March this year when he was released and I was gathering all my energies to write about how Faiz's words seeped deep into the heart of Saibaba.

During his time in prison, Saibaba learned Urdu just to translate Faiz into Telugu. In his confinement, the 'Anda Cell', the isolation made him lose his sense of time and place. He had to forget many practical things to survive and embrace a new set of skills (and dreams). At this point, he returned to his passion for literature which led him to Faiz’s translations.

He wrote elaborate letters to his family, particularly to his daughter Manjeera about English literature, his main research area. He even wrote several poems in English that are waiting to be published.

While Faiz had his share of history with oppression and violence, Saibaba’s pain comes from a different history, very contemporary in its essence and suffering. He, after all, is a direct victim of the mishandling of truths and realities.

I keep thinking about what might have been on Saibaba's mind when he was breathing last. Perhaps these lines, written by Faiz in a poem titled The Incarceration of Loneliness:

On the far horizon waved some flicker of light

My heart, a city of suffering, awoke in a state of dream

My eyes, turning restless, still dreaming,

the morning, dawning in this vacuous abode of separation.

(Afsar Mohammad is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning South Asian scholar working on Hindu-Muslim interactions in India. He also focuses on Muslim writing and Telugu studies. He teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)