Editor,
Former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba was acquitted by the Bombay High Court on 5 March after he endured eight-and-a-half years of imprisonment. The 58-year-old academic and poet became 90 percent disabled after he had permanent post-polio paralysis at an early age.
After his release, he said, “I am not able to understand because I still feel that I am there in the notorious anda cell (a high-security egg-shaped barrack for dangerous convicts). I am not able to adjust to the surroundings. I only looked at the walls, closed walls, for all the seven-eight years.”
The prosecution against GN Saibaba failed but it robbed him of more than eight years of his life.
I remember a Bengali movie Sabar Uparey (Beyond All). In that film, actor Chabbi Biswas played the character of Prasanta Chatterjee, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the charge of murdering a woman. Uttam Kumar played the character of his son, Shankar. He reopened the case after 12 years and successfully pleaded in favour of his father to make him free of the false charge and also brought to light whodunit. But the film reached the climax after Prasanta was acquitted by the judge. Prasanta burst into tears in the courtroom saying, “Give me my twelve years back!”
The recent report of Saibaba’s media conference after his release is no less moving. As per the report, he and his wife AS Vasantha struggled to contain their emotions as he recounted his hunger strikes for medicines, his physical immobility, and the pain of being denied to see his mother before her death.
Academic GS Saibaba, who was arrested on 9 May, 2014 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 said, “My mother passed away while I was in prison. She carried me to school as I was disabled but she wanted me to get a good education. When she died, I was not allowed to see her. I was denied parole and even permission to attend the funeral. Post-funeral performing rites, I was denied.”
A few days ago, the apex court had refused to interfere with the arrest of NewsClick founder and editor Prabir Purkayastha and the HR head of NewsClick Amit Chakraborty on the grounds that the offences which were alleged fall within the ambit of the UAPA.
Umar Khalid was also arrested under the UAPA on 14 September, 2020. His bail plea has repeatedly been adjourned and he has still been waiting for justice. Earlier Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Parkinson’s disease patient was arrested under the UAPA. He had to wait in jail for a month to get a straw to drink liquid and died in jail while waiting for justice.
The data that out of 8,371 persons arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act between 2015 and 2020, only 2.8 percent were convicted raises serious questions about whether this law should be pursued in an independent democratic country. Moreover, our judiciary is overburdened with court cases. As a result, more often than not, justice is delayed. Given that the cases under the UAPA need extreme caution and attention, justice is further delayed in such cases.
A democracy cannot survive without dissent and free speech. It needs to be reviewed whether the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act tends to erase lines of demarcation between political dissent and criminal activity and whether it poses a challenge to dissent and democracy. It is imperative to draw clear lines of demarcation between dissent and unlawful activities.
Sujit De,
Kolkata