Who is former DU professor GN Saibaba who has been acquitted of having Maoist links?

Former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba will finally be able to breathe free. On 14 October, the wheelchair-bound former professor, who is currently lodged in the Anda Cell at Nagpur Central Jail with over 90 per cent physical disability, was acquitted in the alleged Maoist links case.

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court said that due process of law cannot be sacrificed at the altar of “perceived peril to national security”. The bench directed that Saibaba be released forthwith from jail unless accused in any other case.

Saibaba has been in jail since 2017 when a session’s court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district convicted him and others, including a journalist and a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student, for alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country.

They were sentenced to life for offences under sections 13, 18, 20, 38 and 39 of the UAPA and 120 B of the Indian Penal Code for alleged association with Revolutionary Democratic (RDF), which was alleged to be an affiliate of outlawed Maoist organisation.

On his acquittal, Saibaba’s wife, Vasantha Kumar, told The Wire, “This win could not have been possible if not for the lawyers and all those who supported Saibaba and me all these years. This was a long-drawn fight but I am happy that justice is finally done. This was the only case against Saibaba. I can’t wait for him to be out of jail.”

She was quoted as telling news agency PTI, “We had faith that he would be acquitted because he did not do anything wrong. There was no crime and no evidence.”

We take a closer look at who is GN Saibaba and the case that was filed against him.

GN Saibaba’s life

Professor Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba was born in Andhra Pradesh’s Amalapuram in 1967 in a poor family. His father grew rice on three acres of land but by the time Saibaba was 10, he’d lost that to money-lenders.

At the age of five, Saibaba was struck by polio and left paralysed waist downwards. His present wife, Vasantha, says that as a child Saibaba’s movement was by crawling as the family didn’t have money to purchase a wheelchair.

He met his wife Vasantha at a coaching class and they fell in love over Std X maths homework. As years progressed, he got involved in activism and spoke in favour of the rights of Dalits and Adivasis.

He has been a vocal critic of the policies on Bastar’s tribals, including the infamous state-sponsored vigilante movement Salwa Judum. For those who are unaware, Salwa Judum, which means peace march, began in 2005 as a government-backed “people’s resistance movement” against the Maoists. However, it involved the authorities arming tribal villagers to fight the Maoists.

His disability didn’t stop him and in 2003 he joined the Ram Lal Anand College in Delhi as an Assistant Professor in the English department. Today, Saibaba has lost the use of both his hands and suffers from hypertension and chronic back pain.

Saibaba’s arrest and trial

In May 2014, Professor Saibaba was arrested for allegedly having links with Maoists. After his arrest, the Ram Lal Anand College suspended him from service and in 2021, the principal of the college signed a memorandum terminating his services “with immediate effect”.

After his arrest, he spent a long time in prison as an undertrial and was released on interim bail on medical grounds in July 2015. He was rearrested in December that year, and released again on the Supreme Court’s orders in April 2016.

In 2017, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for alleged Maoist links and for indulging in activities amounting to waging war against the country. The prosecution had claimed that Saibaba was the secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), an alleged frontal organisation of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). RDF is banned in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

The authorities had said that of the electronic devices seized from his residence in 2013, they had found as many as 247 pages of ‘incriminating’ evidence. The police also claimed they had a memory card from Hem Mishra, which contained certain documents that “established” Saibaba’s deep involvement in the activities of the banned terrorist organisation.

The sessions court in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district had held Saibaba guilty under various provisions of the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Saibaba’s plight in prison

Saibaba’s time in prison has been a nightmare for him and his family. After his conviction, in one of his letters to his wife, accessed by Rediff.com, the professor wrote of his difficulties inside the Nagpur Central Jail.

He had written then, “Already I am shivering with continuous fever. I do not have a blanket. I do not have a sweater/jacket. As temperature goes down excruciating pain continuously in my legs and left hand increases. I am living here like an animal taking its last breaths.”

Saibaba and his family have alleged that authorities at the prison have denied him his basic rights and on number of occasions even flouted court orders.

In October 2020, Professor Saibaba went on a hunger strike for his basic rights: From medical treatment to books to medical reports denied to him since November 2018. A year later, he was granted access to his medical papers, which showed that he needed an angiography.

Saibaba’s wife claims that not only was the procedure not done, but the medical authorities at the prison falsely stated that he had refused to undergo tests for the procedure.

Saibaba had also applied for parole in July 2021 to observe his mother’s first death anniversary as her eldest son, but this too was turned down.

In jail, Professor Saibaba also contracted COVID-19 twice, with his wife stating that he was was tested almost a month after he started having symptoms, and that too after she sent the jail authorities an e-mail request for the same.

His nightmare in prison was so acute that earlier in June a number of civil society and academic organisations from across the globe penned a letter to Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, urging him to immediately grant medical bail to professor Saibaba.

The signatories of the letter expressed concern about his health, stating that he was steadily losing the functioning of his vital organs. “His life sentence has effectively turned into a death sentence,” the signatories had written.

With inputs from agencies

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