RSF – In memory of Comrade Saibaba: The flame of revolution that can never be extinguished
We hereby publish an unofficial translation of a statement published by the Revolutionary Students’ Front from India.
“Because I love so much
The sounds of growing grass.”
On October 12, 2024, Comrade GN Saibaba, activist and revolutionary poet, professor of Delhi University, breathed for last time. But the death of this 57-year-old professor is not a normal death at all. He was imprisoned for ten years, with practically no medical treatment, on serious but unsubstantiated charges of waging “war against the Stat” under suspicion of being Maoist. While incarcerated, in the absence of proper medical treatment, Professor GN Saibaba’s physical deterioration was known, but he was undemocratically not allowed to meet his family members and even lawyers.
GN Saibaba taught at Ramlal Anand College, University of Delhi and fought for the rights of the oppressed people of the country throughout his life. He contracted polio from the age of 5 and lost 90% of mobility of his body. But his physical disability never stood in the way of his political consciousness and his role in the mass movement. Saibaba’s entry into the student struggle was influenced by revolutionary artists like Gadar and revolutionary student politics in his student life. He became a member of the All India People’s Resistance Forum in the 1990s. He has continuously questioned against one after another imperialist anti-people projects and against organized State terrorism in the country. He continued the democratic struggle against terror by idustrialists like Ratan Tata and the Salwa Judum Force, a joint initiative of the Indian government to uproot tribals from their water of their forest lands. He raised objections against repressive laws (POTA, AFSPA, UAPA etc.) and unjust detentions of political prisoners without trial. Unable to suppress his revolutionary spirit, the Indian State was forced to imprison him. On 9th of May 2014, he was arrested as a member of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, a front organization of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Ignoring his physical condition, he was kept in “Anda Cell” in inhumane conditions in the prison. Despite the physical deterioration, the government and jail authorities did not offer minimum medical treatment.
Saibaba’s crime was not an act of terrorism, but resistance – he struggled for the voiceless allthrough his life, for people oppressed by imperialism, feudalism and state terror. His revolutionary spirit was extremely dangerous to the reactionary ruling class – harmful to a system that thrived on violence, inequality and injustice. So the courts of this State held him, but the brain is more formidable than the physical force. Saibaba was the bearer of Maoist philosophy and of the revolutionary spirit that made the house of cards of the ruling class tremble. This class loots the labor and resources of the workers, farmers, middle class, small and medium bourgeoisie. So the joke in the name of justice continued until, even lacking of proper treatment, his brain could not be stopped.
Imprisonment on false charges and slow murder of prisoners through inhuman torture is the well-known modus operandi of the fascist Indian State. From Comrade Swapan Dasgupta, Himadri Roy, Sudip Chongder to Comrade Pateet Pawan Halder, one after the activists from other mass movement were tortured and killed for lack of treatment. The Trinamool government, which came to power by assuring the release of political activists imprisoned in the Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh movement, has imprisoned Jangalmahal political activist Comrade Buddheshwar Mahato (currently free on medical bail) without trial and treatment for a long time. After more than a decade of imprisonment without trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Shilda case by presenting false evidences.
Saibaba’s assassination proved once again that the state fears revolutionaries more than anything else. It is a brutal warning to all who dare to challenge its supremacy, but it is also a call to war. The system may have taken Saibaba’s life, but they could never overcome his consciousness. His death will surely fuel our struggle against this tyrannical state, intensifying the fight for freedom, justice and liberation of all oppressed people. This relentless struggle, ignoring all physical obstacles, sacrificing one’s life for the sake of the people, against state exploitation, will forever ignite the spark of mass movements, prisoner liberation movements and revolutionary movements in India as well as across the world.
Hundreds of thousands of red greetings to Comrade GN Saibaba!