P Victor Vijay Kumar
That was a silent breath of wind, passing both of us, at midnight under the big banyan tree in the exhausted, hustling bustling metro city of Delhi.
“A Brahmin is like Plastic. We don’t want him but many a time we need him. We know he contaminates everything but we still have few options but to use him. We can’t even properly dispose of him after use. It takes thousands of years to decompose for a plastic object but a brahmin may take even more time,” I said looking into the smoky circles around his cigarette.
He is sitting in his wheelchair with hurdled movements. One hand lies almost dormant throughout the day after it was damaged during his remand in the jail. His relief, for a moment in a day, is his cigarette. His smile with the cigarette entices almost all around him.
He looked appreciatively, probably, in the gloomy light of the street and said ” It would be Dalit leadership which will have to take over the reins. India has no option. I am, unfortunately, not finding one (to take over these reins). I am afraid we will get into a state of desperation gradually “
~
Prof. Saibaba is the most revered scholar and intellectual in the teaching circles as well as human rights activist circles. He had spearheaded “All India People’s Resistance Forum (AIPRF)” and visited many universities abroad to give his lectures on how adivasis have been circumvented of their normal human rights for the sake of corporate greedy interests. He traveled widely across the world to expose the Indian state, how it is silencing Adivasis while inviting foreign investments into Indian forest lands.
Page 1 of Letter from Prof Saibaba to the author, dated 21st September 2017
This caused much inconvenience and made large international corporations express their displeasure, in writing, to erstwhile Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh. As a result of the permeating embarrassment in intellectual academia, the Government thought to pursue certain out of Constitution measures to contain the aggression of Prof. Saibaba, who is 90% disabled and is totally dependent on his wheelchair for his daily chores. He was the one who took a large initiative and waged a legal fight as well as leading a physical movement against non-implementation of reservations for OBCs in Delhi University. His political interest started grooming up after he actively led the Pro-Mandal Commission movement in Hyderabad.
Page 2 of Letter from Prof Saibaba to the author, dated 21st September 2017
Below is an attempt to recapitulate what the world has not really paid attention into detailing of his incarceration but only went by typical urban middle-class sympathy for a physically harmless disabled man. Many of these facts, interestingly and surprisingly, challenge our common sense too.
• Prof. Saibaba, a 90% disabled person, was charged with the allegation that he “tried to hatch a war against the Government” (and Pakistan could not do it for decades despite severe disquietude in Kashmir but a disabled Professor teaching day in day out at University can!)
• Amongst others, he reportedly colluded with three Chhattisgarh tribal marginal agriculturists to wage a war against the Government. (And he is managing this war plan from Delhi !)
• The reason why Prof. Saibaba’s house was raided originally was not on the grounds that “he was hatching a war against the State” but he that had burgled a house in a place called “Ahire” in Maharashtra (which means he is supposed to be a habitual burglar managing a racket across the country sitting in his wheelchair in Delhi!)
• The hard disk seized during the raid was password protected and the password was given to police voluntarily by none other than Prof. Saibaba himself. (This is how open a hardcore terrorist he is!)
• He was initially kidnapped by unknown people from campus and then declared that he was arrested. (Yes..it was to kidnap! not arrest!). UAPA is usually applied after consultation with the Home Ministry. But in his case, it was applied by the police themselves, without consulting the MHA.
• Delhi Univesity ruled by RSS henchmen initiated enquiry against him with “ONE MAN” commission (One man constitutes one Commission. And his judgement is commission’s judgement!)
• He was not even provided proper toilet facilities for his physical conditions in jail. Due to the rude and ruthless handling of his physical condition by police, his condition deteriorated so much in the jail that his left hand has almost become dysfunctional. Police ensured that he just survived during trial period offering him medicines only during the time close to court attendance date. Just before imposing his regular imprisonment, he had serious Pancreas infection and was in ICU (The judge was deaf to his health conditions before announcing imprisonment to him!)
• The case was judged based on “Unsealed evidence” and this has been taken on record (You heard it right and the evidence was tampered before presenting in front of the court)
• There is no single evidence found in Saibaba’s house which proves he is a member of Maoist Party (The maoist literature Police referred was general Marxist literature!)
• All his letters, including his personal family letters, are scrutinised by the Police minutely. To illustrate, his daughter wrote a ‘Faiz Ahammad Faiz” poem to her father and the same was torn off as they considered this as a code language. No daily paper into his Anda cell comes without being edited by scissors as they consider him dreadful of his reactions on regular news happening in India. (That’s the fun part of the State functioning).
This is only a brief and small narrative of how the State can steer its machinery at its will to contain all dissenting voices. Ambedkar considered “Constitutional Morality” is the heart of democracy and when the Government formally implements constitution without honouring the morality of constitution, it remains as an administrative rulebook. And, when Constitutional Morality fails, that’s where the dissent takes extreme form throwing this entire democratic system into a vicious circle.
Prof. Saibaba wrote letters to his friend, who is the author of this article, and mentioned that “he is reading silence (nowadays)”. He vents out his disgruntlement on how this blatant violation of law by Judiciary itself is going unnoticed in the open public and why Indian intelligentsia is not shuddered by the hideous act of the State.
Letter from Prof Saibaba to the author, dated 26th September 2017, is posted below.
Both letters from Prof Saibaba (click here to view pdf)
It is imperative at this stage that every individual of conscience needs to react to protect and preserve genuine intellectuality and ensure dissent lives long as long as Brahminical Hindu fascism lives in this country.
~~~
The author can be reached at pvvkumar@yahoo.co.uk or his facebook ID “P V Vijay Kumar”.
