Can't agree anymore with the author
Dr Saibaba must be freed immidiately.
What do you say friends?
A Delhi University teacher, forced into solitary confi nement in an
"unda cell" (egg cell), has been charged with conspiring to wage war
on the state. Incredible, but there seems to be no limit to which the
powers that be can stoop - accusing a wheelchair-bound man of seeking
to bring down the great Indian state!
http://www.epw.in/commentary/arrested-story.html
P K Vijayan (pk.vija...@gmail.com) teaches English literature at Hindu
College, University of Delhi.
I want to tell you a story, of a little man, if I can; his name was -
well, his name - we will come to it shortly. This little man was born
into a wretchedly poor peasant family that lived on the outskirts of a
little known village, with the out-castes and untouchables. This
little man's father had chosen to live with the marginal and the
excluded, as a mark of solidarity with them - and this was motivated
simply by an instinctive sense of justice, since the little man's
father was not even literate, let alone politically educated.
So the little man grew up amongst the sweepers and the scavengers,
with hunger and deprivation as bosom companions to him and his
siblings. Then, when he was barely five years old, he was afflicted
with polio in both his legs, as a result of which he almost died from
lack of medical facilities. But the little man's father managed to
stave off his death, by running from pillar to post, from every doctor
to every dispensary that held out hope, till the fast-spreading
disease was finally checked; nevertheless, the little man lost the use
of both his legs completely from the disease.
This did not deter the little man or his father. He was enrolled in a
mission school, where he learned to read and write and consumed
everything he read with rapacious delight. Reading by the light of
street lamps, dragging himself on his elbows and hands on the dirt
roads of his village, from home to school, eating one meal in two days
sometimes, the little man delighted in the world of books, and forgot
about his own deprived and depraved one, for the hours that he was
lost in them. The father meanwhile, took the little man wherever he
could, showing him as much of the world as he could from the
handlebars of his bicycle, obdurately refusing to accept that his
son's condition would limit his mobility. The little man thus grew up
with a deep wanderlust and an indomitable will to overcome the
limitations of his condition.
Which is how the little man, who was now no longer little but a
full-grown, popular and well-liked young man, despite his 90%
disability, went on to complete his school, pre-university and
undergraduate degrees with flying colours, largely on the dint of
scholarships and fellowships earned through sheer academic excellence.
And as this young man grew into maturity, he also saw the colours and
prejudices of the world around him, and learnt of its profound
inequalities and injustices, and of the many, many crores of people
who were systemically and systematically disadvantaged from birth - if
not in medical terms like him, then in social and economic terms, very
much like him, and in fact, much worse off than him.
So it was that when he moved to the big city of Hyderabad for his
Master's degree, he was already filled with a steely resolve to fight
these injustices with the same never-say-never spirit with which he
had fought, and continued to fight, his own debilitating
circumstances. This is how the young man, by the time he completed his
Master's degree, had become an accomplished, respected and hugely
popular scholar and political activist. But the young man wanted to
see more, to learn more, to do more - so he gave up the familiar
terrain and people and tongues of Hyderabad, and moved to Delhi, with
his newly married wife. Struggling to battle the harsh and callous
conditions of the bigger city, coping with unfamiliarity and
unemployment and prejudice and loneliness, this man, against his
better instincts, against the enormous demands placed on him mentally
and physically and financially, nevertheless stayed on and moved from
job to job till he was finally appointed as a lecturer in a Delhi
University college.
This man is now a scholar and teacher of international standing and
repute. He completed his doctoral degree, and has travelled
extensively, nationally and internationally, presenting papers and
giving lectures. And he has spoken out strongly, consistently and
irrepressibly against the injustices and inequalities that he grew up
with, and others that he has learned about, and yet others that are
evolving around us, in ever-multiplying forms, as the welfare state
bids farewell and exits the political stage. The polymorphous
perversity that has pushed out and replaced the welfare state however,
is profoundly invested in retaining, maintaining, sustaining and
indeed further entrenching precisely those - and other - injustices
and inequalities, because that is precisely what it feeds on, and
thrives on, and cannot bear to have challenged, least of all by the
likes of this man, who epitomises and embodies everything that it
wants to crush and destroy - indomitable spirit, fearless resistance,
and the will to overcome the cruelest of odds.
Little wonder then, that the perverse drones of this polymorphous
perversity sought to arrest a man already in a permanent state of
arrest, thanks to his disability. Little wonder that they did so
Mafioso style, by blindfolding and abducting him from his car on a
university street in broad daylight in full public view, and swiftly
bundling him by air to another city. Little wonder that they brought
case after fabricated case against him, starting with the charge that
he was holding stolen property at his house (can there be anything
more absurd than accusing a wheelchair bound man of running around
stealing property?), and leading up to charging him with conspiring to
wage war on the state (in answer to the previous parenthetical
question - yes, incredibly, our polymorphous perversity can go, and
has gone, to the even more absurd lengths of accusing a wheelchair
bound man of seeking to bring down the great Indian state!). Little
wonder then, that they chose to do so in the peak period of a general
election, so that the absurdity of their actions would simply
disappear into the still greater absurdities of the great Indian
circus of the elections that are farcically celebrated as the greatest
festival of democratic participation in the world. And what greater
comment on the farcicality of that vaunted "democracy" can there be
than this arrest, and its timing, and its rationale, and its method?
And what greater ironical comment can there be on the story of this
man, if, after all the odds he has overcome, after all the
disabilities he has brushed aside, after all the deprivations and
handicaps he has forged through, after all his achievements and
accomplishments, he should be silenced and immobilised through the
sheer brute force of the very polymorphous perversity that he has
spent his life battling and overcoming?
As we now know, this man is now in solitary confinement, in an "unda
cell" (egg cell), without light or ventilation, deprived of
medication, unable to use even the toilet without severe pain and
discomfort, crawling on hands and elbows wherever he is made to go -
all in a desperate attempt to destroy his dignity, break his spirit
and get him to confess to crimes he neither committed nor of which
they have any proof of his committing.
G N Saibaba is not just another "good doctor". He has become the
biggest "little man" in the country today. His voice is the voice of
the marginal and excluded that he grew up with, in that village in his
youth - of every marginal and excluded voice in every village in the
country. His story is their story, and must not be muzzled, and cannot
be silenced. Saibaba must be freed for that story to be freed.
Immediately
--
Avinash Shahi
M.Phil Research Scholar
Centre for The Study of Law and Governance
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi India
Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of
mobile phones / Tabs on:
http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in
Search for old postings at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/
To unsubscribe send a message to
accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in
with the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes,
please visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
Disclaimer:
1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of
the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its
veracity;
2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails
sent through this mailing list..
