Thread by @suchitrav

I remember reading an interview of Prof. GN Saibaba, where he said his favourite author was Ngugi Wa Thiong'o whom he met at a seminar.

After one of many raids in his house, his wife said, "When the police returned the photos, those of Sai with Ngugi weren't there," she says. "They probably thought Ngugi's a Maoist," jokes Saibaba. The loss of the three hard discs is less funny.

One had personal photos; another video of protests; the third three manuscripts he's been working on." (Times of India 2013)

Two year ago in 2017 GN Saibaba was "sentenced to life ".

His lawyer Rebecca John stated that “There is absolutely no evidence against him. If the State trying to enter the mind of a person, into what his ideology is, we get these kind of orders under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.”

She added that there was no evidence that he had “any role to play in any violence, or in incitement to violence, or any active participation at all.” (Scroll, 2017)

For a moment, pause and reread that sentence. The state just exiled a man to this death, through carceral punishment. GN Saibaba is a paraplegic, his last incarceration in 2014 almost killed him due to lack of medical facilities in the prison.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, was detained without trial between 31 December 1977 and 12 December 1978 in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. He was charged with having engaged in unspecified "activities and utterances... dangerous to the good Government of Kenya and its institutions".

In this book Detained, he chronicles his experiences of being in prison.

There is a telling line in the book, " The rituals of mystery and secrecy are calculated exercises in psychological terror aimed at the whole people - part of the culture of fear - and at the individual detainee - part of the strategy of eventually breaking him"

Oppressive nightmares haunt those who think, act and resist.

But what does it say about a society that has decided that this act of violence was essential? This verdict is as much a reflection of a state that gentrifies dissent as it is an indictment of our inhumanity.

There is a long history to this sentence of exiling Prof GN Saibaba, for life in the confines of a prison. That history takes us to the nature of our ruling class. It's pathologies and predicaments, it's hatred for dissent, and it's loathing against its people.

At a certain point in the book, Ngugi discusses settler colonialism. The physical nature of colonising and its brutality. Increasingly this colonisation not just an occupation of places and its resources. It is also an occupation of our minds and imagination.

It is a violent act of settling, anchoring and rooting ideas that militate against our existence.

It is convincing us that oppression is imperative to sustain the republic, it justifies criminalising dissent, and successfully argues for making border markers out of those who are expendable.

To incarcerate GN Saibaba is an effort to break him. It is also an attempt to signal performance of power against the powerless. We are now a theatre state, governing through performing nationalism through "un-national", anti-national behaviours of others.

When I wrote about this in 2017, I had asked — How will this slow purge ends, what will be left us ?

2 years has seen an on going purge — it’s latest victim is activist #Mugilan who had been missing for 2 weeks now.

When this purge ends — there will be no one left to care.