Workers’ League from Brazil: GN Saibaba present in the struggle!

We publish an unofficial translation of a statement published by the Workers’ League. This statement has been translated also into German by Dem Volke Dienen.

It is with great regret that the Workers’ League expresses its feeling and internationalist solidarity because of the death of GN Saibaba that occurred this past Saturday (12/10). For us, Professor GN Saibaba was and will continue to be an uncompromising militant in defense of the rights of the people in India and the cause of liberation of all oppressed peoples in the world. His role in defending his ideals as a professor at the University of Delhi and as president of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) aroused the fury of Indian reactionaries who persecuted and imprisoned him.

Saibaba was kidnapped by police officers in 2014 without the right to trial under the alleged “Unlawful Activities Prevention Act” and since then he was arrested and released several times, with the last arrest lasting from 2017 to 2022. This law, very similar with the anti-terrorism law approved by Dilma (PT) in Brazil, allows preventive arrest of any person of the people without evidence or trial, which is what happened with Saibaba.

Unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017. His death was actually a long-term murder, a direct result of complications in his health conditions caused by the conditions of incarceration in the dungeons of the old Indian State.

As everyone knows, the professor had 90% of his body paralyzed due to the polio he suffered as a child. At the press conference he gave shortly after his arrest, facing severe pain to be able to speak to the press and the people, he denounced that “I was imprisoned in a prison that has a capacity for 1,500 inmates, but 3,000 people were housed there in precarious conditions. There wasn’t even a single ramp in the prison for people like me.”

“Instead of going to the hospital, I chose to speak to the press today because you supported me. My family faced stigma and I was called a terrorist… I am sitting in front of you today to talk to all of you, with a lot of pain in my body. I can’t speak properly nor am I in a position to sit here,” he added.

At the time of his release in 2022 due to lack of evidence, Indian activists denounced that the late decision of the Bombay High Court, which gave Saibaba his freedom, would prevent the teacher’s full recovery – which corroborates the long-term accusation of murder.

Even in the difficult conditions imposed by persecution, Saibaba never stopped defending the Indian people, a motive that moved him for much of his life.

President of RDF for years, Saibaba defended the indigenous peoples of India, threatened and persecuted by the Indian State, big landlords and imperialist mining companies, since the 1990s.

Saibaba did not hesitate in denouncing the actions of the forces of repression against the people and the anti-people and caste policies in India.

For three years, between 2009 and 2012, he played a key role in bringing together democrats at the Forum Against the War on the People. In it, Saibaba denounced the Operation Green Hunt, which, under the pretext of persecuting the Indian Revolution led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), committed numerous crimes against the revolutionaries and masses of India.

During this period, Saibaba participated in several international events to condemn the war against the people and defend the Indian Revolution.

It was precisely because of these activities, which hurt the bloodsucking interests of the ruling classes and imperialists in India, that the persecution against Saibaba intensified. In 2012, the professor was threatened with eviction from the university where he worked. The attempt was prevented by a large international campaign by democratic figures and even academics.

In September 2013, however, the Indian State, at the service of the ruling classes, invaded Saibaba’s home, snatched him from his wheelchair and arrested him. The accusation was that the teacher (who already suffered from paralysis) had committed a robbery in Maharashtra. He ended up released.

It was the beginning of the long trajectory of new arrests against the teacher. We reproduce below the trajectory of Saibaba’s struggle for freedom published by the newspaper A Nova Democracia.

“In 2014, Dr. Saibaba was clandestinely kidnapped from the University of Delhi and subsequently arbitrarily arrested under the fascist “Unlawful Activities Prevention Act”, after taking part in campaigns to defend the rights of the people, already being accused of links with the Maoists. He was also active in the struggle for the release of Indian political prisoners and in defending the peasant struggle against the installation of multinationals in Central and Eastern India. Professors and activists at the University of Delhi denounced the persecution against Saibaba on the same day as the kidnapping. Ramdev, Dr. Saibaba’s brother, denounced the isolation imposed on him, further stating that the prison guards had not given him the medicines he had used since he suffered a heart attack, a clear act of torture.”

“On July 3, 2015, the Bombay High Court granted Saibaba three months of release on bail after repeated reports of worsening health conditions in prison. In an interview given at the time, he asked: ‘Why is the government afraid of me? Am I 90% paralyzed? This State thinks that a person who has the courage to approach, see and describe reality is a threat.’ The professor also continued to defend the legitimacy of the revolutionary struggle and condemned the old Indian State for the violence unleashed against the people, as well as denouncing the conditions of his prison and the violence suffered during his time in prison.”

“In December of the same year, the Bombay High Court canceled the teacher’s bail, arresting him at Christmas. Under renewed silent assassination attempts, Saibaba denounced, in 2016, in a letter to the chief judge of Gadchiroli district that he was not receiving medical care for the serious injury to his left shoulder acquired in prison and that this aggravated the danger of losing movement of his left hand. At the time, he asked the judge to immediately send him to treatment and requested minimum facilities and helpers for daily tasks such as bathing, using the toilet, moving around, eating, among other necessary adaptations to his condition.”

“On April 4, 2016, Saibaba was released on bail again, but was sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2017. In a letter written from prison to his wife, Saibaba stated:

“’I don’t have a blanket. I don’t have a sweater or jacket. As the temperature decreases, the unbearable and continuous pain in the legs and left hand increases. It’s impossible for me to survive here during the winter that starts from November. I live here like an animal with its last breaths’.”

“On December 17, 2018, as a way of continuing its silent murder plan, the old Indian State also accused Saibaba’s doctors (geriatrician Dr. Haji Bhatti, neurologist Dr. Prasad and cardiologist Dr. Gopinath) of being “Maoist sympathizers” for explaining the serious state of health in which the professor was. On October 21, 2020, Saibaba began a hunger strike to protest his arrest and the conditions in which he was held.”

“It was in 2022 that a first acquittal was granted to Saibaba, by the Bombay High Court. The Indian Supreme Court, however, decided at the last minute to suspend the decision, which had taken place after a month of international campaigns in defense of the professor’s freedom, life and health. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) reported to the Supreme Court that the charge against the prisoner was ‘very serious’ and that procedural irregularities (such as the forging of ‘evidence’ by authorities) were not sufficient to ‘justify acquittal’. The protest by his students at Delhi University against the reactionary decision was harshly suppressed.”

It was during this long period that Saibaba wrote a series of poems about his time in prison and the struggle of the masses. He defended, in one of them, as a message to his own mother, that “the freedom that I lost / is the freedom that multitudes have gained / because everyone who takes part for me / takes upon himself the cause of the disgraced of the earth / where my freedom rests today.”

Mortality is true, as Saibaba wrote, “even the land dies” but as he wished “there must be many lands”. Therefore death struck Saibaba but his blood pact with his people still lives. The revolution in India continues and its people struggle in their just war for liberation.

Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba, present in the struggle!