One in every of my earliest reminiscences of assembly Professor G N Saibaba, or Sai, as a few of his pals referred to as him, was at his house within the Gwyer Corridor hostel of the Delhi College’s north campus. The primary time I went there, I handed by the principle entrance, crossing a number of rows of rooms, and bear in mind listening to a Hindi scholar reciting a Dinkar poem in one in every of them. On the acute finish of the hostel was Sai’s official residence, allotted to him because the hostel’s warden. Later, when my visits turned extra frequent, I began utilizing the again door that immediately led to his residence. Once I met him there, we had already identified one another for a while. However from 2007-08 onwards, this acquaintance was one thing deeper. It was a tumultuous time, a time when the Maoist motion was attracting a number of headlines. Earlier, as somebody who had travelled by Bastar, when one returned with tales, editors have been merely not ; they dismissed it because the “Warangal” downside. However now, it was the place everybody needed to go — the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, would quickly name it India’s largest inner safety menace.
However that may come later. In that little quarter, in whose entrance room Sai’s daughter, Manjira, all the time completed her college homework, there was a lot to speak about with a person who would push himself into the room on his wheelchair and smile and have a look at you together with his penetrating gaze. The spot the place he often positioned himself within the room had a metal e book rack close by that was stuffed with books and pamphlets on tribal rights, political prisoners, and the way huge firms have been usurping the land of the Adivasis. Sai’s spouse, Vasantha, would seem with tea, and he would take out his packet of Gold Flake cigarettes, provide it to me and carry on speaking about what he thought I ought to know as somebody within the “motion”. He remembered all the things, and would dole out names and dates and full details about an occasion in a matter of some minutes.
My travels to the Maoist heartland additionally elevated round that point. There’s a means of grief that I got here throughout for the primary time in Bastar many, a few years in the past. Over the corpse of an Adivasi man, killed by state mercenaries, his spouse stood in absolute silence, her arms raised behind her head, her face contorted. There was a quiet dignity to that grief; and likewise give up to the horrible circumstances of their life, having been caught in a battle between the Maoist guerrillas and the Indian state. That day, as I watched that lady, one thing inside me modified, which I couldn’t contextualise in any respect. That occurred later, when Sai launched me to a spectrum of individuals, a few of whom turned shut pals. He knew all of them, from locations like Nagpur and Adilabad. Their eyes lit up once they heard Sai’s title and their doorways opened up for a weary traveller like me, all the time on a good finances. One in every of them occurs to be the lawyer Surendra Gadling, who remains to be in jail within the Bhima Koregaon case.
I had a curiosity in regards to the motion; I used to be intrigued by the lifetime of Maoist leaders like Anuradha Ghandy who got here from upper-class backgrounds. I needed to learn about individuals who had left comfy lives and their family members in pursuit of an ideology. With Sai’s assist, I travelled close to and much, and received in contact with their households. In Adilabad, I met the household of Peddi Shankar, the primary “martyr” of the Folks’s Warfare Group, who was killed in police motion in 1980; I used to be distraught to see that even after so a few years, the lives of Dalit households like theirs had hardly modified. In neighbouring Warangal, I spent hours with Somanar Samma, half of whose household had joined the Maoists (her daughter was married to senior Maoist commander, Pulanjaya) and had all died by the point I met her in 2010. I met the mom of Gajjala Ganga Ram, an engineering graduate, who died in 1981 after a hand-grenade exploded in his fingers — his sister, I used to be instructed, was nonetheless with the Maoists. I met the households of different leaders like Sande Rajamouli and Wadkapur Chandramouli, sitting in small drawing rooms, as a father or mom reminisced about little children they’d not seen in years or would by no means see. By this time, I had in my head an encyclopaedia of kinds on the motion. The truth is, sooner or later, Sai was shocked after I discovered the title of the slain Maoist chief, whose associate, Maase, featured in Arundhati Roy’s essay on the Maoists.
The identical yr, the federal government launched Operation Inexperienced Hunt in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere. The journalist, Hem Chandra Pandey, who was killed by the police together with Maoist chief, Azad, turned one of many collateral damages of the operation. I bear in mind assembly Sai and some different pals at his quarters on the day Pandey’s physique was delivered to Delhi. Sai was distraught — he had been hoping that there could be some negotiation between the Maoists and the federal government. However with Azad’s loss of life, since he was killed earlier than he might talk about the phrases with the Maoist management (with Swami Agnivesh as interlocutor), that chance was misplaced as nicely. Earlier that yr, I had damaged the story of how Congress chief Digvijaya Singh, was in contact with a jailed Maoist ideologue, by a Congress chief from Hyderabad (this was a time when Singh had overtly accused Chidambaram of “mental vanity”). However with Chidambaram’s reluctance, and the knowledge of Operation Inexperienced Hunt, that window additionally closed. A yr later, when my e book Howdy, Bastar was launched in Delhi, Sai was there, and as Digvijaya Singh got here down the rostrum, Sai spoke to him, urging him to intervene on behalf of the Adivasis whose lives have been getting badly affected by the violence of Salwa Judum.
A number of years later, Sai was arrested. We had not remained in contact like earlier than. By that point, I had my very own story of exile from Kashmir to inform. Sai knew about it and he additionally knew that I had disagreements with him on his engagement with Kashmiri Islamist hardliners like Syed Ali Shah Geelani. However to his credit score, he by no means let that are available in the best way of our friendship. My final assembly with him was simply earlier than his arrest; I instructed him a couple of lady Maoist and that I needed to inform her story. He checked out me and smiled; he stated: “Why not! Her story is yours as a lot as it’s mine.”
As I got here to know of his loss of life, I remembered that smile. I posted somewhat message on X, which was met with the standard flurry of labels like “City Naxal” from nameless handles — the folks behind these can not even level out Bastar on India’s map. At present, I needed to inform them one thing: They need to attempt to meet CRPF troopers who’ve served there. They might battle and kill Maoists, as is their responsibility, however I’ve additionally discovered them deeply conscious of the plight of the Adivasis there. The primary warning in opposition to Salwa Judum, they might not know, was despatched to the Centre by one in every of their officers.
We’ve got misplaced Sai — and we will need to have no hesitation in saying that it’s due to the brutal incarceration he confronted earlier than being acquitted of all prices. Allow us to hope and pray that his loss of life (and life) prompts the judiciary to return to the raison d’être of the Supreme Court docket; allow us to hope that it outcomes now within the launch of Surendra Gadling, Umar Khalid, and lots of others whom this nation’s justice system has totally failed.
Pandita is the creator of Howdy, Bastar: The Untold story of India’s Maoist Motion.
