[Reader-list] Silencing Dissent With a ‘Maoist’ Tag?

[Asit Das]

http://www.tehelka.com/silencing-dissent-with-a-maoist-tag/#.U4cT_uESQt8.gmail
Silencing Dissent With a ‘Maoist’ Tag?
*Delhi University professor GN Saibaba’s arrest for suspected Maoist links
causes a furore among rights activists, says G Vishnu*
[image: G Vishnu]
G Vishnu <http://tehelka.com/author/vishnu>  |
@geevishnu<https://twitter.com/@geevishnu>
2014-05-24 , Issue 21 Volume 11

<http://www.printfriendly.com/print?url=http://www.tehelka.com/silencing-dissent-with-a-maoist-tag/>
[image: Urban Maoist? Saibaba was campaigning against ‘Operation Green
Hunt’, Photo: Shailendra Pandey]

*Urban Maoist <http://www.tehelka.com/tag/maoist/>? *Saibaba was
campaigning against ‘Operation Green
Hunt<http://www.tehelka.com/tag/operation-green-hunt/>’,
Photo: Shailendra Pandey

GN Saibaba <http://www.tehelka.com/tag/gn-saibaba/>, a wheelchair- bound
English professor from Delhi University with 90 percent disability, has
been lodged in the Nagpur Central Jail in Maharashtra since 10 May. The
Maharashtra Police had arrested him a day earlier in New Delhi under
various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). To the
police, Saibaba, 47, is the “urban face of the
Maoist<http://www.tehelka.com/tag/maoist/>
 movement”.

Saibaba’s arrest has been criticised by human rights activists, who see in
it portents of what awaits those who oppose the government’s
anti-Maoist<http://www.tehelka.com/tag/maoist/>
 offensive.

The arrest comes almost eight months after a police team from
Gadchiroli<http://www.tehelka.com/tag/gadchiroli/> district
of eastern Maharashtra raided Saibaba’s residence in Delhi University’s
North Campus and seized hard drives, reading material and even his
daughter’s cell phone. The raid had followed the arrests of rights activist
Prashant Rahi and JNU student Hem Mishra last September from the
Chhattisgarh <http://www.tehelka.com/tag/chhattisgarh/> capital Raipur and
Balharshah railway station in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district,
respectively.

The chargesheet against Rahi and Mishra was filed on 17 February. Saibaba
was named as a co-accused in the case with a note: “yet to be arrested”.
Questions are being raised over why the police waited until May, when the
General Election was underway, before arresting him. Besides Rahi, Mishra
and Saibaba, the chargesheet names three others from Maharashtra — Pandu
Narote, Mahesh Tirki and Vijay Tirka.

On being contacted, Gadchiroli
<http://www.tehelka.com/tag/gadchiroli/> Superintendent
of Police Suvez Haque asked TEHELKA to speak with Inspector General (Nagpur
range) Ravindra Kadam. Kadam, however, was unavailable for comment.

Recalling the day of Saibaba’s arrest, his wife Vasantha says he had called
her at 1 pm and said he would come home for lunch. “He didn’t turn up and
by 2.30 pm, his phone was switched off,” says Vasantha. “Later, I got a
call from an official claiming to be from the Maharashtra Police, who told
me that my husband had been arrested.”

Then she went to the Maurice Nagar Police Station, where she learnt that
the Maharashtra Police had been waiting with a non-bailable warrant
since 9.30 am. “They picked him up a few hours later while he was on his
way home. Clearly, they didn’t want him to get in touch with his lawyers,”
she alleges.

Saibaba had been actively campaigning against the government’s
anti-Maoist<http://www.tehelka.com/tag/maoist/> offensive,
better known as ‘Operation Green
Hunt<http://www.tehelka.com/tag/operation-green-hunt/>’.
Several New Delhi-based human rights activists have alleged that his arrest
is an attempt to “stifle the voices that speak for civil liberties”.

“The UAPA enables you to ban an organisation and then criminalise anybody
who stands up for a cause by claiming, for instance, that the person
possesses literature linked to the banned organisation,” says Gautam
Navlakha, a prominent human rights activist in New Delhi. “Anybody who
speaks out against landgrab by corporates for mining could be on the list
of those the State wants to silence through the UAPA.”

Speaking to TEHELKA last September, Saibaba had expressed apprehension over
the police’s intentions. “They want to silence me as the home ministry has
received thousands of protest letters against Operation Green
Hunt<http://www.tehelka.com/tag/operation-green-hunt/>,
thanks to our efforts in the international arena,” he had said. “Even as
Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh consults me on village
development, his government sends the police, who lock me up in my own
house for four hours.”

The Maharashtra Police had first written to Saibaba, asking him to come to
Maharashtra for interrogation. But he had refused to do so, citing his
disability. His friends say the arrest was expected.

On 15 May, Saibaba was suspended from his teaching job by the Delhi
University authorities.

Saibaba, who had lost his legs to polio as a child and has a cardiac
problem, has threatened to sit on a hunger strike if the jail authorities
don’t provide for his special medical needs. He has also alleged that he is
being kept in solitary confinement in a cell where he is unable to use the
Indian-style toilet because of his disability.

vishnu at tehelka.com

*(Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 11 Issue 21, Dated 24 May 2014)*