In 2010, Alpa Shah, an anthropology professor joined a Naxal platoon that set out on a seven-night march across 250km through Bihar and Jharkhand. An excerpt from her journey.
After an hour and a half of walking, a young man dressed in an olive-green uniform, with an old rifle slung across his shoulder, appeared among the bushes. Behind him were five similarly dressed men, several metres apart. The first sentry post to our destination, I suspected.
‘Lal salaam, lal salaam (Red salute, red salute),’ we greeted them one after another, as they shook our hands and raised their clenched fists in the air. The last soldier was wearing a printed black T-shirt bearing the legend, ‘I’m unreliable, inefficient, unpredictable, unorganised, undisciplined, immature, but I’m fun!’ A message in stark contrast to the disciplined line that the soldiers had formed to greet us, it made me smile.
We walked on, passing two more sentry posts, and then we plunged back into forested terrain. Suddenly the early morning light burst through a clearing in the trees. I blinked my eyes in disbelief. In front of us, bathed in sunlight and framed by the granite hills on three sides, lay a colourful spectacle of interwoven trails reaching out like a spider’s web. Carved out of the shrubbery, the trails were lined at waist height by garlands of rainbow bunting. Crepe paper, carefully cut into triangles, neatly glued on to jute rope by dozens of hands. The trails led from one large tent to another.
I had met the Maoists in their camps many times in the forests of Jharkhand but nothing could have prepared me for this. It was a small, festive city in the middle of the hilly forests. I felt as though we had stumbled upon Lindon of Gil-galad, haven kingdom of the elves in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. A far cry from the dazzling skyscrapers and shopping malls of Gurgaon erected to permanently tower over New Delhi, it was equally impressive for its grandeur and impermanence. It could be taken down within a couple of hours and not a trace of it would be detectable to the unfamiliar, untrained eye.
The tents housed the various sections of the guerrilla army. There was also a medical tent, a tailor’s tent and a ‘computer room’ consisting of a dirty, battered, chunky Dell laptop and a bashed-up grey printer all wired to run off a tractor battery. At one end lay a series of small-tented cubicles. Pits were dug for latrines; one even had a white porcelain squat lavatory seat.
In the centre of the web stood a large bright red and yellow tent with a green roof. Seating at least a hundred people, this was the central meeting room. Seven framed black and white photographs hung on one wall of red cloth. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong all in a line. Below these international gurus were Charu Majumdar and Kanhai Chatterjee, the two Naxalite leaders of the 1960s whom these Maoist guerrillas now commemorated as the instigators of the Indian struggle. All the photographs were garlanded with marigolds. In one corner of this wall of photos, someone had pinned a rudimentary handmade drawing of a person holding a gun to the head of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Next to this was a similar portrait of Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born president of the Congress Party, who had married into the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that had, with the exception of a few years, presided over Indian politics since the country’s separation from British rule.
At one edge of the camp, there was a large open space – a field – where at least 200 young men were gathered. One group was running around the field in an anti-clockwise direction, side-stepping every ten metres. Another group was doing the same but running in the opposite direction. Those in the middle were in ten disciplined lines, throwing themselves into the air in a synchrony of star jumps. This was the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army performing their daily morning exercise drills.
The kitchen was perhaps the most striking because of its organisation. Sacks of rice and lentils stacked high on top of each other formed two demarcating walls, while a trickling stream was a third boundary. To provide clean drinking water to the camp, a well had been ingeniously dug into the side of the stream, fortified with large rocks, and was worked by a pulley system. In the middle of the kitchen three trenches of varying lengths had been dug. Each had roaring fires with large aluminium vats atop. Rice and dal or potato curry on the boil, I suspected. Young men were sitting cross-legged on the ground, rolling out chapattis for those who would not eat rice.
We had walked into the conference of the State-level Committee of the Maoists, a meeting that took place once every five years, and which brought together all the guerrillas from the neighbouring districts of the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. For some it had been a fourteen-night-long trek to get here. It was hard to know how many of the total People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army were at this meeting, perhaps about 400. I was told that similar conferences were simultaneously taking place across the country in other parts of Jharkhand and across the forests of central and eastern India in Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
At each conference, the Maoist activities of the previous years would be analysed and evaluated, future plans generated, and solutions to problems found. This was the place where crucial decisions would be collectively discussed, with exhaustive debates, to eventually be put to the vote, with the majority decision binding on all. That was the theory of it at least. Germinated in the Paris Commune, it was called ‘democratic centralism’ by Lenin, who used it to build the Bolshevik Party.
The conferences were also where the Maoist practices of criticism and self-criticism unfolded. These were the elaborate public confessions and denunciations of mistakes that each soldier had made; an attempt to reinforce group cohesion and discipline used by many Maoist-inspired parties, from the Zimbabwe National Liberation Army to the Khmer Rouge. The conference was also where promotions were decided and political and military training delivered to the cadres.
Above all, for the Maoist leaders, it was a space in which to redevelop the feeling of a community and commitment to the cause that united the guerrillas, to renew solidarity. Dispersed fighters, working in various parts of the country and sometimes in isolation, came together for a few weeks, ideally to strengthen, form and reform bonds between them. The hope was to create a casteless, classless microcosm of the future utopian community that they were all fighting for.
In contrast to the surrounding caste-divided villages of India, in the guerrilla community caste names were eliminated – every individual became a comrade, born with a new name. While respect for elders was to be shown by calling them ‘dada’ or ‘didi’ (elder brother or elder sister) or by adding the suffix ‘ji’, material differences were to be erased. The idea was that people came to the guerrillas with nothing and were given everything deemed necessary for their existence. One uniform and a set of plain clothes, one blanket, one bedsheet, one plastic sheet, one rucksack and a bar of soap. The division of labour according to the caste, class and gender hierarchies that existed in the world outside was also to be eradicated. Cooking rotas were to involve all, men and women alike. And while lower-level cadres were to learn to read, leaders were to dig the toilet pits.
(Excerpted with the permission of HarperCollins from ‘Nightmarch: A Journey Into India’s Naxal Heartlands’ by Alpa Shah. You can buy the book here.)
Open Letter to Federica Mogherini
To the attention of the VP / AR Federica Mogherini:
On February 29, 2016, I sent you a written question – E-001822-16 – about the situation of imprisonment that Professor GN Saibaba was suffering in India, to which you replied that the EU “The EU has been closely following cases of human rights defenders arrested in India, including the cases of professor Saibaba, accused of having links with Naxal militants, and of Ms. Arundathi Roy, accused of contempt of court for her article defending the cause of Professor Saibaba. The EU Delegation in New Delhi has made appeals on humanitarian grounds with the National Human Rights Commission.
The EU attaches great importance to the issues at stake, most importantly to the freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial and the rights of human rights defenders. These issues are also addressed at the EU-India human rights dialogue.” Continue reading →
The Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee (PPSC) strongly condemns the judgement by the Gadchiroli Sessions Court March 7, 2017 convicting Mahesh Tirki, Pandu Narote, Hem Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Vijay Tirki and G N Saibaba, under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) and awarding life sentence to five of them and a ten year imprisonment to another. Continue reading →
The judgement of the District and Sessions Court in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, on March 7, 2017, which sentenced the Delhi University professor and four other activists to life imprisonment, is an unprecedented provocation for any defender of human and democratic rights anywhere. GN Saibaba, wheelchair bound for life, was judged as one of the greatest dangers for Indiaʹs security! He is shoved in jail to die there as he is severely ill. The accusation and sentencing was based on ridiculous evidence under the provisions of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act which criminalizes the ideas and thoughts of militants. Continue reading →
Today 17/3/17 I met my brother Dr. G. N. Saibaba at Nagpur Central jail after the undemocratic judgement pronunced by the Gadchiroli sessions court. I waited nearly 4 hrs after applying for the mulakat to meet saibaba. The jail authorities has given mulakat almost at the end of the day around 5.45pm.
The jaali mulakat last just in 20 min with two time warnings in between. The new jaali mulakat system is completely undemocratic and inhumane as the window is completely sealed with glass and to talk only over telephones on their side of the glass window. When we talk we can’t even see the face properly; when face is to be observed we can’t talk. With great difficulty we could able to share few things.
Dr. Saibaba looked very weak. He was unable to take Jail food. Jail authorities are not providing required diet to him. He is vomiting if any jail food is consumed. He got two times unbearable pancreatic pain in the jail. He is suffering from pancreas infection and admitted into hospital just before the verdict. So far no medical treatment has been given to him.Even the basic facilities which were earlier provided are now not extended.today did not accept to give medicines,bedsheets, fruits etc.his health condition is highly deteriorated. He needs immediate medical treatment.I was not permitted to meet senior jailer to discuss health issues of Dr. G N. Saibaba. Even Hem Mishra’s health is not in good condition.
It is with utter disbelief and deepest concern that we learn of Prof. G. N. Saibaba, a highly respected intellectual and Asst. Professor in the Dept. of English at Ram Lal Anand College, part of a Delhi University, has been sentenced to life imprisonment under various sections of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Prof. Saibaba is wheelchair-bound, 90% disabled with severe and fragile health conditions that warrant constant and now urgent medical attention.
Saibaba, along with five others – a student, a journalist-activist and three young adivasi villagers have been accused of a criminal conspiracy to ‘wage war against the Government of India’ and of ‘links with a Maoist organisation.’
We register our strongest condemnation of the sentence and demand immediate release of Prof. Saibaba and all others accused, and that the concerned authorities conduct a thorough, fair and transparent investigation into the framing of this case.
For many years Saibaba has been outspoken regarding atrocities against the adivasis and for the welfare and rights of tribal and marginalised populations. Continue reading →
Alle organizzazioni contro la repressione e di solidarietà con i prigionieri politici
Ai docenti, intellettuali, studenti democratici
Protestiamo contro la condanna all’ergastolo del Prof. GN Saibaba e 5 suoi compagni!
Fermiamo il soffocamento del dissenso con leggi liberticide e processi farsa!
Libertà per tutti i prigionieri politici in India!
Dopo quasi quattro anni, il 7 marzo 2017, la persecuzione contro il Professor G N Saibaba della Delhi University si è conclusa con la condanna all’ergastolo sua e di altri 5 imputati.
Nel 2013 la polizia del Maharashtra perquisì illegalmente per due volte l’abitazione del dottor Saibaba con la falsa motivazione di “ricettazione di oggetti rubati”, sequestrò supporti informatici senza registrarli e sigillarli come impone la procedura legale.
Nell’aprile 2014 lo stesso professore, disabile al 90% e costretto su sedia a rotelle, fu sequestrato e incarcerato, accusato secondo la legge di “prevenzione delle attività illegali” (UAPA) insieme ad altri 5, il giornalista e attivista Prashant Rahi, lo studente Hem Mishra e gli adivasi Pandu Narote, Mahesh Tirki e Vijay Tirki.
Per due anni è stato detenuto in attesa di giudizio nella prigione centrale di Nagpur, dove gli sono sono state sistematicamente negate le più elementari strutture necessarie a una persona nelle sue condizioni, le terapie e l’assistenza medica necessaria, causando un drammatico peggioramento della sua salute, come riconosciuto dalla la Corte Suprema indiana che nell’aprile 2016 gli ha concesso la libertà su cauzione. Continue reading →
Why are they so afraid of someone who is 90% disabled?‘
Delhi University Professor G N Sai Baba was convicted on March 7 to life in prison under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act — UAPA — for being a member of a banned terrorist organisation, the Communist Party of India Maoist. The professor, who has undergone two spells of imprisonment in Nagpur jail as an undertrial, is 90 per cent disabled and wheelchair-bound. After his arrest in May 2014, he was released on interim bail on medical grounds in July 2015, only to be rearrested in December that year, and released again on the Supreme Court’s orders in April 2016.
Immediately after the conviction, the professor’s wife issued a protest statement that summed up her outrage. Two days later, Rediff.com contributor Jyoti Punwani caught up with Vasantha Kumari.
In between tending to a distraught mother-in-law and leaking taps in her Delhi home, Vasantha expressed her shock, bafflement and indignation at what she feels is a terrible injustice done to someone who has only fought for rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
Delhi home, Vasantha expressed her shock, bafflement and indignation at what she feels is a terrible injustice done to someone who has only fought for rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Continue reading →
Condemn the conviction of Professor GN Saibaba and five others in India! Condemn the travesty of justice and stifling of voices of democratic dissent! Repeal all draconian laws such as UAPA! Release all political prisoners!
The life sentence given on 7th March 2017 to Delhi University Professor G N Saibaba by the Gadchiroli District and Sessions Court in Maharashtra State of India is shockingly unjust. The court has convicted him and five others under the draconian anti-terror law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Besides Saibaba, the five people convicted are journalist and social activist Prashant Rahi, Jawaharlal Nehru University student Hem Mishra and tribals Pandu Narote, Mahesh Tirki and Vijay Tirki. (While five have been sentenced to life term in prison, the court sentenced Vijay Tirki to 10 years in jail). Continue reading →
Am 7. März wurde durch das regionale Gericht des Distrikts Gadchiroli im indischen Bundesstaat Maharashtra der Professor der Universität Delhis, G.N. Saibaba zu lebenslänglicher Haft verurteilt. Das Gericht verurteilte ihn und vier weitere Personen, Hem Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirkey und Pandu Narote unter den Artikeln 13,18,20,38 und 39 des Repressionsgesetzes „Unlawful Activities Preventions Act“ (Gesetz zur Vorbeugung ungesetzlicher Handlungen). Eine weitere Person, Vijay Tirke wurde zu zehn Jahren Haft verurteilt.
Die Artikel des UAPA sind dabei:
13: Bestrafung für die Ausübung „ungesetzlicher Handlungen“, aber auch die Unterstützung, Anordnung oder Anstiftung dazu.
18: Bestrafung für „Verschwörung“, wozu jegliche Art von Unterstützung, Anstiftung, Gutheißung von „terroristischen Taten“ gezählt wird.
20: Bestrafung für die „Mitgliedschaft in einer terroristischen Gruppe oder Organisation“.
38: Straftat im Zusammenhang mit der „Mitgliedschaft in einer terroristischen Organisation“.
39: Straftat im Zusammenhang mit der „Unterstützung einer terroristischen Organisation“.
Zusätzlich wurde im Urteil der Abschnitt 120B des indischen Strafgesetzes angeführt, kriminelle Verschwörung.
Die Anwälte Saibabas erklärten, dass sie mit dem Fall vor das Bombay High Court, Indiens höchstes Gericht, ziehen werden.
Im Fall Saibaba ist dieses Urteil kein lebenslängliches, sondern ein Todesurteil. Schon während seiner Zeit im Gefängnis während seiner Untersuchungshaft, aus der er zuletzt am 4. April auf Kaution freigelassen wurde, zeigte sich, dass er eine Haftstrafe aufgrund seiner Gesundheit nicht lange überleben wird.
Eine ausführliche Schilderung der Situation Saibabas im Gefängnis gibt ein Essay der Autorin Arundhati Roy aus dem Mai 2015 wieder. http://www.demvolkedienen.org/index.php/de/asien/1284-saibaba-zu-lebenslanger-haft-verurteilt
The old Indian State, through the Court of Sessions of Gadchiroli (Maharashtra), convicted the Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba to the life imprisonment. That punishment happened because of his important militancy in defence of the people’s rights. Besides Professor Saibaba, five other militants were targets of this unacceptable measure and convicted under the draconian anti-terror law.
The Indian government has attacked more and more the people of its own country. In order to expel the peasants from their lands, under the mantra of “Operation Green Hunt”, the Adivasis people villages are being decimated, under constants air strikes and the offensive of mercenary groups working for the government. All this has been done to ensure the interests of transnational companies, especially those in the mining sector. In the cities, there is a growing number of draconian laws targeting activists and people’s rights activists. Besides Professor Saibaba the renowned Indian writer Arundhati Roy also has been pursued by the old State. Continue reading →
It is the pages smuggled out from Nagpurʹs high security central prison over a period of three months which will make Delhi University Professor GN Saibabaʹs latest book. He was recently released on bail after spending two years in jail…
avaninews.comIt is the pages smuggled out from Nagpurʹs high security central prison over a period of three months which will make Delhi University Professor GN Saibabaʹs latest book. He was recently released on bail after spending two years in jail following being charged under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
In a bizarre, highly deplorable judgment delivered on Tuesday, Suryakant Shinde, Sessions Judge at Gadchiroli District Court in Maharashtra convicted Prof GN Saibaba (Delhi University), Prashant Rahi (Journalist from Uttarakhand), Hem Mishra (Cultural Activist, Student, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi), Mahesh Tirke, Pandu Narote and Vijay Tirke (tribals from Gadchiroli) and sentenced life imprisonment to the first five and ten years imprisonment to the last, under Sections 13,18,20,38 and 39 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code. Continue reading →
Our advocates will move high Court soon. This judgement is shocking. In the history of Maharashtra this is the first case in which all the person’s charge sheeted were are convicted in all the sections with life imprisonment. Saibaba brother attend most of the arguments of our advocates before the hon. Judge and found that the judgement seems has not taken those into consideration. No evidence has been proved by the prosecution, electronic evidence not sealed. It seems the state and Central governments have put a lot of pressure on the judiciary to implement anti people and undemocratic policies at the behest of corporates and MNCs. The governments have selectively to suppress the voice of people to plunder the resources of this country. The BJP govt. Wants to push nakedly the agenda of RSS by through such people like saibaba behind the bars.
CRPP Statement on the conviction and life sentences by the Gadchiroli Sessions Court of MAHESH TIRKI, PANDU NAROTE, HEM MISHRA, PRASHANT RAHI, VIJAY TIRKI AND GN SAIBABA!
CONDEMN THE CONVICTION OF MAHESH TIRKI, PANDU NAROTE, HEM MISHRA, PRASHANT RAHI, VIJAY TIRKI AND GN SAIBABA!
CONDEMN THE PENAL STATE THAT CRIMINALIZES POLITICAL IDEAS, DISSENT AND THE RIGHT TO PROPAGATE IDEAS IN A DEMOCRACY!
REPEAL UAPA AND ALL OTHER DRACONIAN LAWS! RELEASE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!
The Gadchiroli sessions court judgment on Mahesh Tirki, Pandu Narote, Hem Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Vijay Tirki and GN Saibaba (all accused in order) under Sections 13, 18, 20, 38 & 39 of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) read with 120-B of the IPC goes a long way in the acts of the entrenchment of a deep national security state ready to penalize anything that it seems a threat to the powers that be. More than the law the 827 odd page judgment is a testimony of how far the lower courts in India are easily malleable to the pulls and pressures of a police state that turns its back to the merits in the detail of the case to draw the fine line between what is primarily and legally beyond suspicion in the commission of the said offence to something that is and can’t stand the rigour of legal scrutiny.
An Appeal to the People, Democratic Organizations, Individuals, Mass Organizations and Political Parties Let us build a broad united democratic movement to demand for the release of Prof. G.N. Saibaba, Hem Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirke, Pandu Narote and Vijay Tirke convicted under UAPA by the sessions judge Gadchiroli, Maharastra let us also fight to withdraw the draconian UAPA itself
Revolutionary Democratic Front is not a frontal organization of CPI (Maoist) and it is not a banned organization in Delhi, Maharastra and certain other states.
The sessions and district court of Gadchiroli dist of Maharastra has pronounced its judgment against Prof. G.N. Saibaba and five others on 7th March, 2017 under heavy bandobast of armed police. Uniformed armed police with AK-47 like sophisticated weapons were allowed into court hall also where the public hearing of the court is supposed to take place. From the side of accused only the blood relatives were allowed besides the defense lawyers. Continue reading →
Fascist indian state disclosed its actual fascism under the mask of democracy. Fascist state and government sentenced GN SAIBABA to life and put other democratic activists to jail. We condemn and firmly oppose such kind of injustice. We assert that, every citizen has right to take position in favor of any interest of any ethnic group, religious minority etc and stand against any kind of injustice, oppression against adivasis,dalits etc.
It’s a matter of political right. But under a fascist system political right never be ensured. As Indian state, has launched an ultimate war against people of seven sisters. Operation Green Hunt, air fight in Bastar, Malkangiri killing are some example of this democracy. Cold blooded murder in the name of crossfire is a daily routine. Actually, all of the massacre is against the great maoist movement and the proletariat people.
Saibaba and other activists has been opposing actively that kind state killing for several years. It was the main fault of them. They are people’s leader. But for state they are rebel and the are linked with anti-state activities. We want immediate release order of them. We believe an ultimate movement can ensure their release. We always stand with any rightful movement whatever it is armed or unarmed all over the world.
Revolutionary Student – Youth Movement (RSYM)
International Week of Action 2-9 April 2016
Clic on the picture to download all available versions
The Call for International week of Action in all avaliable languages
Am 7. März wurde durch das regionale Gericht des Distrikts Gadchiroli im indischen Bundesstaat Maharashtra der Professor der Universität Delhis, G.N. Saibaba zu lebenslänglicher Haft verurteilt. Das Gericht verurteilte ihn und vier weitere Personen, Hem Mishra, Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirkey und Pandu Narote unter den Artikeln 13,18,20,38 und 39 des Repressionsgesetzes „Unlawful Activities Preventions Act“ (Gesetz zur Vorbeugung ungesetzlicher Handlungen). Eine weitere Person, Vijay Tirke wurde zu zehn Jahren Haft verurteilt.
