New Delhi: Arundhati Roy, the winner of the Booker Prize, has compared โIndia todayโ to a plane flying backwards, claiming that it is โon the verge of crashing.โ
She was addressing at the publication of the book โWhy do you fear my method so much?โ by GN Saibaba, a collection of poems and letters by the imprisoned human rights crusader.
Ms Roy claimed that, after leading โreally revolutionary campaignsโ in the 1960s to redistribute wealth and land, the countryโs leaders were now distributing โ5 kg rice and 1 kg saltโ to win votes and elections.
โI recently asked a freind of mine who is a pilot, โCan you fly a plane backwards?โ He burst out laughing. โThis is exactly whatโs going on here,โ I said.
โThe leaders of this country are flying the plane backwards, everything is falling apart, and weโre on the verge of crashing,โ warned the bestselling author of โThe God of Small Thingsโ and โThe Ministry of Utmost Happiness.โ
India, according to the 62-year-old writer, is a place of โadvanced jurisprudence,โ but one in which rules are implemented differently based on your โcaste, class, gender, and ethnicity.โ
โWhat are we doing here today? We are meeting to talk about a professor who is paralysed 90 per cent and has been in jail for seven years. That is what we are doing. That is enough. We do not have to speak anymore. That is enough to tell you what kind of country we are living in. What shame is this,โ she said.
In 2017, a sessions court in Maharashtraโs Gadchiroli district sentenced GN Saibaba, who has over 90% physical disability and uses a wheelchair, to life in prison on the accusation of having Maoist sympathies and engaging in actions that amounted to โwaging war against the country.โ
Under the strict anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the court found GN Saibaba and others guilty. His employment as an assistant professor at Delhi Universityโs Ram Lal Anand College ended on March 31, 2017.
D Raja, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India, who delivered the book at Jawahar Bhawan, reaffirmed his call for GN Saibabaโs immediate release.
He believes the current government is misguided if it believes it can beat a communist by labelling him a โterroristโ or imprisoning him.
โThe government of the day thinks by labelling some people as โurban Maoists, โurban Naxalites, โanti-nationalsโ, โterroristsโ or putting them in prison or torturing them in prison, they can succeed.
โI warn them they can never succeed. A communist can be killed, but a communist can never be defeated Mr Modi,โ Mr Raja added.
Vasantha, GN Saibabaโs wife, was also present for the book launch. She described how her husband, who was born into poverty in the Andhra Pradesh hamlet of Amalapuram, overcame his handicap to graduate from university and become a well-respected professor.
She also discussed GN Saibabaโs alleged inhumane treatment in solitary incarceration at Nagpur Central Jail, his poor health, which included a heart issue and chronic and severe spinal pain, and several parole denials, even for a few days to attend his motherโs funeral.
The book has been published by Speaking Tiger and is available for sale in offline and online stores.
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