Why do you fear my way so much?

Book Review

Title: Why do you fear my way so much?

Author: G N Saibaba

Publisher: Speaking Tiger, New Delhi, 2022

Pages: 216

G N Saibaba breathed his last on 12 Oct 2024 at the age of 57. It may be more correct to say that he was killed by the government of his country just as Rev Stan Swamy and a lot many others were. Stan Swamy was an octogenarian, suffering from severe Parkinson’s disease and other ailments, when he was arrested under the draconian UAPA. He died in prison at the age of 84 labelled by his government as a traitor.

G N Saibaba was a professor of English in Delhi University when he was arrested in 2014 under UAPA for alleged links with treasonous Maoist groups. Polio had rendered him absolutely incapable of free movement right from childhood. The prison authorities deprived him even of his wheelchair, making life incredibly brutal for him in the Anda cell of Nagpur Central Prison. The egg-shaped cell (‘anda’ means egg in India’s putative national language) is high-security confinement meant for highly dangerous criminals. Saibaba, who is 90% disabled by medical criteria, who could do very little on his own, was deemed a serious threat to the government of India!

What did Saibaba do to merit such a punishment? In his own words in a letter to his wife Vasantha, “We dreamed of a better society, we hoped for an end to the inequalities, for human rights, freedom, civil and democratic rights of the oppressed people, Dalits, Adivasis, women, the disabled, the minorities. We continue to uphold these values and work for the betterment of the marginalised sections of the people…” That was the dangerous crime this 90%-disabled professor had committed.

This book under review here is a collection of poems and letters written by Saibaba from jail. He sent the poems to his wife and some of his friends. Most of the poems deal with the various kinds of injustices and oppressions that the poor and the marginalised people of India are made to suffer. There are political commentaries in some. A few are autobiographical.

The title of the book, Why do you fear my way so much? comes from the great classical poet Kabir. Kabir finds a mention in many of the early poems of this collection. The poet says that he is a messenger of love, like Kabir. Then why do the powerful people fear his way so much?

Love has been declared a war, says one of the poems. Those who love others are branded as traitors in the country where hatred has become the most prominent political virtue. “The hall of songs and dance / where we made vows of love / has been demolished / by the worshippers of hate.” [‘Your Song of the City of Love’]

Even the monks in this new political system are monsters wearing religious garbs. “When you famously declared / shunning of all passions / you began to spread hatred / among the communities of people / And finally, you grabbed / the seat of power / in the name of the Almighty.” [‘Tell Me, O Monk’]

Certain malicious forces have accumulated political power with the help of religion. “The monks howl and prowl / shitting along the holy riverbanks / preaching cleansing of democracy.” [Aphorisms of Our Age’] In this country governed by ‘shitting’ religious leaders, data is more abundantly available than food. “The farts of a democratic / dictator smell sweet.” [Ibid]

Music has died in such a country. “The poets are poisoned / The historians are buried alive / The scientists are coaxed / The philosophers are sent to the gallows.” [‘A Nightmare in My Dystopian Prison Cell’] “Now, democracies breed fascism / Nazism, majoritarianism / They set in automation self-destructing human machines…” [‘When is the New Year?’]

This anthology is a painful narrative of how a government makes a section of its citizens helpless, shackle their emotions, imprison their loves, fetter their thoughts, chain their words, and steal their languages. The poems are written in very simple words without taking recourse to elegant poetic devices. These are hard-hitting verses written by a man who was confined to fetters by an unjust and inhuman system.

In March 2024, ten years after his arrest, Saibaba was adjudged innocent by the court. It was too late, however. His health had deteriorated incurably by then. His spine and left-hand muscles had degenerated beyond curability. The government of India did that to him. In love. Love for the nation. Love for culture.

G N Saibaba’s death was an “institutional murder.” And you know which institution killed him.

G N Saibaba

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