A world of silence is blown into smithereens: GN Saibaba, who led a life of struggles since his childhood

By Advocate Ehtmam ul Haque, Syed Affan 

There are but very few whose life leaves irrevocable marks on the hearts and minds of others, and there are scarcely a few who continue to inspire confidence, hope, resilience and an undying spirit of resistance to oppression, even after their death. One such story is of Dr. G.N. Saibaba, who led a life of struggles since his childhood and along the way, his life somehow intertwined with the struggles of the oppressed and exploited peoples of the country and the world. A lot many factors play a role in shaping a person’s conscience to lead a life that Saibaba did- political ideology, comrades, material conditions and sacrifices- of innumerable unnamed fighters of justice who lay down their lives for a better tomorrow.

Dr. G.N. Saibaba was born into a poor peasant family on 24th July 1967 to Gokarakonda Satyanarayana Murthy and Suryavathi at Sannavilli near Amalapuram, East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. The family was struggling to meet ends at the household when the conditions took a turn for the worse when Saibaba was diagnosed with Polio paraplegia at the age of five in 1972, due to lack of vaccination. Despite the polio resulting in paralysis of his lower limbs, he pursued his education with the support of his mother, who carried him in her arms to the school doorsteps. He did his schooling up to the matriculation from St. John’s High School in Amalapuram from 1977-82. He went on to pursue his intermediate education at SKBR College in Amalapuram from 1982-84.

Start of a revolutionary life

In the late 1980s, When  Saibaba was in his college, it was an era filled with revolutionary energy emerging from revolutionary literature from the Revolutionary Writers Association (VIRASAM) and songs from Jana Natya Mandli, inspiring thousands of youth to plunge into people’s struggle and Saibaba was not distant from it all. In August of 1990, Saibaba actively participated in the struggle for implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendation in favour of reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC). In 1991, he joined the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL), now known as EFLU, Hyderabad, to pursue a P.G. diploma in teaching English (PGTE), something that would shape his future as an academic in English Literature. 

During his days at CIEFL, Saibaba actively participated in the agitation for the regularization of daily wage mess workers there. In 1992, Saibaba joined the Revolutionary Writers Association (VIRASAM). From 1993-94, he went on to work as a Lecturer at the Institute of Printing Technology, Secunderabad. Soon after, he joined the All India People’s Resistance Forum (AIPRF), rising to the rank of State general secretary of the AIPRF Andhra Pradesh committee in 1995. Understanding the nature of the Indian state and its attitude towards political dissidents, he campaigned for the release of political prisoners, not knowing that he would be a political prisoner, most desired to be in jail by the Indian State. In 1996, he played a pivotal role in organizing the International Seminar on Nationality Question at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, which was attended by delegates from Kashmir, North-Eastern States as well as delegates from the Philippines. 

The publication of ‘Symphony of Freedom’ was the result of the program organized by AIPRF at JNU. By then, he was the all-India General Secretary of AIPRF. At such a young age and in such a short period, Saibaba was in the leadership of AIPRF, leading thousands of Intellectuals, students and youth and coordinating hundreds of people’s struggles across the country. It was his ability to overcome limitations, physical or otherwise, and his political commitment that made him the desired candidate for the task that people bestowed upon him, not any privilege or position of influence as is seen in the oppressive state apparatus.

Dr. G.N. Saibaba also played an important role in the separate Telangana State movement, a demand for democratic Telangana, which was raised by democratic and progressive sections of the society, including Saibaba. In 1997, he was a key person in organizing the Democratic Telangana Seminar and release of the Warangal Declaration, which demanded a separate democratic Telangana State, one that would live up to the democratic aspirations of the masses. 

Dr. G.N. Saibaba was also conscious about the imperialist onslaught on the oppressed nations and how the struggle for a better society was interlinked with the anti-imperialist struggles. He was well aware that globalization was a multi-headed snake, sugar-coated as development and promoted by the imperialist powers to loot and plunder in their interest, which led him to be a strong advocate of anti-imperialism and anti-globalization. Therefore, Saibaba, along with other revolutionary, progressive and democratic forces, united to fight this multi-headed snake in the form of Imperialist-globalization and formed ‘Forum Against Imperialist-Globalization (FAIG) in 1998 to build a campaign against the imperialist onslaught on the oppressed and exploited people of the country.

 Saibaba also recognised that the struggle of Adivasi peasants of the country against displacement encapsulated the ideological struggle of two contending ideas of development, i.e., the corporate model of development and the people's model of development. While the corporate model of development is subservient to imperialism and draws the country deeper into the clutches of imperialism, the people's model of development was focused on developing the society based not on the needs of corporations but the people and their level of consciousness, thereby developing the productive capacity and independence in production.

Affirming this political position among the intelligentsia and the broad masses, Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan (VVJA) was formed after the Ranchi Declaration in Ranchi in the year 2007. The Historic Ranchi Declaration extended support to anti-displacement movements against corporate plunder and affirmed the need for a people's model of development. The Ranchi Declaration and formation of  VVJA was the result of ideological clarity and tireless efforts of  Saibaba and anti-displacement activists Ajay Kumar and Damodar Turi, among others.

While  Saibaba has attained martyrdom owing to brutal incarceration, Activist Ajay Kumar has been incarcerated in a fabricated “NRB revival of Maoists” case, facing the same fate as G.N Saibaba. Damodar Turi is also facing imminent threat of state repression from NIA, which has raided his residence and interrogated him in yet another fabricated “Maoist link” case. All these three have been National Conveners of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan.

Struggle against war on people

In the year 2005, the Indian state unleashed a murderous militia, a private gang funded by corporations and supported by the armed hand of the state. The name of this murderous militia was Salwa Judum ( Peace March in Gondi). Spearheaded by the Notorious Congress leader Mahendra Karma, with the BJP government in Chhattisgarh and Congress government at the Centre, all in cahoots to aid loot of resources of the people of Bastar, This was not a “Peace march” by any means, rather it was a purification hunt in the jungles. 

While Salwa Judum was murdering and raping and burning their way through the forests of Dandakaranya (Bastar) with the aid of paramilitary personnel under the leadership of Notorious SRP Kalluri, who would distribute liquor before sending the militia like an army of barbarians on pillage, Saibaba understood the political responsibility of the time and started organizing campaigns against this genocidal operation sugar-coated as a peace march. He worked with the likes of Dr. B.D. Sharma, Dr. Binayak Sen, Varavara Rao and many others built an all-Indian campaign against this so-called fight against Naxalism and exposed its original pro-corporate roots. 

After much uproar from the progressive and democratic sections of India and abroad, as well as the steadfast resistance of the adivasi peasants in Bastar, giving blow after blow to this murderous militia, Salwa Judum was finally disbanded by the Supreme Court of India in 2012. By the time Salwa Judum was banned, it had already burnt down 644 villages in Bastar, killing and raping hundreds leading to the displacement of almost seventy thousand Adivasi peasants from Bastar. 

Villages were raided by the Salwa Judum militia armed with guns supplied by the paramilitary, and they would force the villagers to inform the people who were sympathetic to the Maoists. Those identified were either killed, raped or brutalized and the villages were emptied and people were thrown into big concentration camps. Threatening statements and messages were released by the Salwa Judum to vacate the villages and come into concentration camps that mimicked the age-old British tactic of Strategic Hamletting used in Malaysia and repeated by US Imperialist forces in Vietnam to quell the people's resistance. Those who refused to abandon their villages and shift to these hell holes called safe camps were considered Maoist sympathizers and, therefore, hunted and their villages burnt.

In 2009, the media first reported that there was a secret operation to root out the Maoists from the forests of Central India. The source was a police official who did not wish to be named. A well-concerted, multi-fold operation flying high the banner of CIA’s ‘Hearts and Mind’ strategy to suppress rebellion was being undertaken at the behest of Congress Government at the helm in the centre. 

The then Home Minister, P. Chidambaram who unleashed this operation, termed it a figment of imagination of the media. But the reality was that such an operation was indeed underway and it was an enhanced and more concentrated form of scorched-earth war being waged already by Salwa Judum in Bastar and many other militias in other states The strategy of the infamous Operation Green Hunt was to “clear, hold and develop”, but more like clearing the Adivasis off their land and handing it over to the corporate and developing (plundering) it in the interest of the big corporate. 

Dr. G.N. Saibaba understood the notorious intent of the infamous Operation Green-Hunt and began to mobilize democratic progressive forces across the country. He, along with many others framed in the Bhima Koregaon Conspiracy Case and still languishing in jail, came together to form Forum Against War On People in 2009. In 2010-11, when Operation Green Hunt was at its most brutal, a campaign against it began to gather speed and public meetings and rallies took place across the country. As soon as word of what was happening in Bastar and elsewhere started to spread, the media, particularly the international media, began to pay attention.

Resilience in face of repression

Saibaba’s political commitment and his work to build solidarity for the people's struggles happening in Bastar and the rest of the Central Indian forested region made him an eyesore for the Indian state. It is in the backdrop of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs affidavit filed in the Supreme Court that clearly spelt out their intentions, which said, “The ideologues and supporters of the CPI (Maoist) in cities and towns have undertaken concerted and systematic propaganda against the state to project it in a poor light… It is these ideologues who have kept the Maoist movement alive and are in many ways more dangerous than the cadres of the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army.

The state’s targeting of the so-called Over Ground Workers (OGWs) in the cities was up and about, and Dr G.N. Saibaba was one of the first on the hit list. On September 12, 2013, his house was raided by 50 policemen flaunting a search warrant for stolen property from a magistrate in Aheri, a small town in Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra. Although they did not find any stolen property, they, in turn, took away his personal laptop, hard disks and pen drives. 

Not much later, on the morning of 9 May 2014, Dr G.N. Saibaba was returning home from examination duty at Daulat Ram College for lunch when his car was intercepted near the School for Open Learning by another car. Some unidentified men forced open the door of his car and blindfolded his dumbfounded driver and even before Saibaba could understand the gravity of the situation, he was also blindfolded and hurled into a car and taken to Civil Lines Police Station, some 3 kilometres away from the spot.

The state wanted to project this abduction as a sensational arrest of a dreaded Maoist ideologue, a person who would be alleged to be in contact with the likes of Ganapathy, the then General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist). It was for this reason that he was flown to Nagpur on the same date and from there, driven to Aheri and back to Nagpur in a cavalcade of Mine proof vehicles and police jeeps filled with hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel armed to the teeth. The next morning’s newspapers were telling the well-devised story that the police played out throughout the episode.

 On the front page of Nagpur newspapers, pictures of heavily armed personnel of Maharashtra Police were proudly posing with their trophy- “The dreaded Maoist”. He was alleged to have been in contact with Narmada, a Central Committee member of the CPI (Maoist), through Hem Mishra, a JNU student and activist who was arrested from Balharshah Railway Station in August 2013. Another serious offence listed to have been committed by Saibaba was that he was the Joint Secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, a conglomeration of revolutionary and democratic forces formed in 2006, banned on suspicion of being a frontal organization of the Maoists in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh but neither in Delhi nor in Maharashtra.

From the time of his arrest,  Saibaba had to undergo a lot of physical and mental abuse at the hands of the police. He was physically harmed during the abduction and his wheelchair was damaged, after which he was subjected to a long journey of 3 days without break. After being produced in Aheri Court, he was brought back to Nagpur Central Jail and thrown in Anda Cell where he was to spend almost a decade of his life.

And so this is how they wrote his death sentence, slowly and slowly, over a prolonged period, by denying him humane living conditions that even a convict deserves by virtue of being a human, not to forget dozens of conventions mandating special treatment for disabled people. But all the special treatment that he received was in the form of denial of medical care, even his basic medications. He continued to have chronic back pain and his left hand, injured during the abduction and left untreated for months, became dysfunctional. Over the years, he developed serious cardiac complications, kidney stones, eyesight complications, rib caging, spinal problems and many more.

On March 7, 2017, Saibaba was convicted along with Hem Mishra, Martyr Pandu Narote, Vijay Tirki, Mahesh Tirki and Prashant Rahi and sentenced to a life term in prison. He was acquitted by the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court on 14 October 2022, only to be kept incarcerated by the Supreme Court’s stay order on a Holiday, showcasing the state’s desperation to keep the voice against war on people silenced. He was finally acquitted by the same High Court on March 5, 2024, and released from prison, riddled with serious health complications owing to deliberate medical negligence in brutal captivity for almost a decade. 

Saibaba attained martyrdom at 8 PM on 12th October 2024 at NIMS, Hyderabad, leaving behind an inspiring legacy of struggle to be carried forward by his comrades and oppressed-exploited people of the country.

Glorious legacy

Saibaba’s struggle against the War on people is far from over because Operation Green-Hunt and Salwa Judum continue in various forms like District Reserve Guards, Operation Kagaar, Operation Clean and Surajkund Scheme. The intensified war on people, now being carried out by state-corporate nexus has taken the lives of almost 250 people, half of them were either unarmed adivasi peasants or captured Maoists, flaunting every pretext of rule of law to displace the Adivasi peasantry from the forested mineral-rich regions and plunder the resources of country’s people in the interest of foreign corporates and big Indian corporates. Bastar today has more camps than hospitals, schools and other basic amenities.

With the onset of Operation Kagaar, for every 7 Adivasi persons in Abujmarh, there are now 3 paramilitary personnel Forests of Bastar are being bombed by the Indian state using Israeli drones and US technology. Hundreds of MoUs are being signed without obtaining people’s consent, and resources are being sold at dirt’s cost, destroying people’s lives, livelihood, culture and environment. With the onset of Operation Kagaar, for every 7 Adivasi persons in Abujmarh, there are now 3 paramilitary personnel. Surajkund scheme aids corporatization through intensification of militarization of all parts of Society, particularly resource rich-regions

Let us answer the call of Bailadila, Amdai Ghati, Surjagarh hills, Niyamgiri, Sijimali, Manjhingmali, Rowghat, Hasdeo, Kolhaan and plunge into the struggle to protect our country and its people from corporate plunder, carrying high the banner of Saibaba’s revolutionary ideals. Let us vow to tread Saibaba’s way that the state feared so much.

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Advocate Ehtmam ul Haque is member, FACAM, and Syed Affan is journalist and anti-displacement activist