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An activist to others, but a beloved companion to one and Vasantha Kumari, 58, is now mourning her loss. Dressed in a dark golden blouse and white floral saree, she was sitting holding a family photograph in her hands – in which GN Saibaba and his daughter Manjeera were seen smiling.
With tearful eyes, she looked at it with a gentle smile. Vasantha said, “I thought that after the surgery he would recover and Manjira and I would come back for us because 10 years of his life had been spent in jail.”
Activist and professor Gokarkonda Naga Saibaba (GN Saibaba) or ‘Sai’ as Vasantha fondly calls him, died about a month ago, barely 7 months after his release from Nagpur Central Jail. When The Quint met Vasantha at her Delhi residence, she was holding Sai’s book in her hands, as if in a default, natural position to which she was accustomed.
As soon as they welcomed us into their home, the shelves full of books and the hand-drawn picture of Vasantha and Sai on the wall above us caught our eyes.
Vasantha gets hold of Sai’s last published book, “Why Do You Fear My Way So Much? Poems and Letters from Prison”, and searches for the poem he had written for her while he was in jail. Once she found it, she smiled and read it to us.
His last published work was released in 2022 while he was in prison.
“The sad thing is that they don’t know how to get me killed. Because I love the sound of the growing grass,” read the last lines. This shows that Sai was for Vasantha a person beyond being an activist, writer and professor.
Then on October 12, time stood still for the family as 57-year-old GN Saibaba passed away due to complications following gallstone surgery.
GN Saibaba’s wife Vasantha Kumari at her Delhi residence.
Despite being confined to a wheelchair since the age of 5 due to polio, Sai achieved fame in the world of education. He was arrested in 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017 for alleged Maoist links and UAPA was invoked in his case.
Interestingly, he has been acquitted twice before. But once in October 2022, the Supreme Court suspended the order. Then in March 2024 the Bombay High Court ruled that “the prosecution could not prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.”
Vasantha searched through their old family photos.
How did imprisonment spoil Sai’s health?
Vasanth recalled that ever since he returned from Nagpur Central Jail, Sai had been suffering from several health problems, most of which were due to his time spent in jail. He also had cardiomyopathy, which he developed during his stay in jail. Due to Sai’s condition, he could not be kept in closed spaces nor given open air nor physiotherapy.
“He contracted Covid-19 twice in jail, yet he somehow fought Covid-19. Everyone said it was just gallstone surgery and nothing would happen, so we did it,” Vasantha said, choking up and then crying.
She stopped, drank water and composed herself before moving on again.
He also alleged that even though he applied for bail or parole so that he could get his medical examination done, it was done only on paper. Even the doctor’s recommendations were not implemented in the jail.
Late activist and professor, GN Saibaba.
What GN Saibaba wanted but could not do
Selfless. This spring has been used for the works of Sai and his lifetime that he has left behind. Despite his health complications, after his release, Sai wanted to continue working for the marginalized as he had done before going to jail.
He spent his entire life for the people, he was vocal for tribals, Dalits, minorities and human rights. Sai raised his voice against the fundamental rights given in our Constitution being violated by the state. He always became the voice of the voiceless,” he said.
Apart from this, Sai had also been vocal about caste-based violations in jail and he was sure of one thing – that once released, he wanted to do something for the falsely implicated and jailed people.
Vasantha said, “It is not just my and Manjira’s responsibility, it is the responsibility of the entire public to put forward their wishes, ideas and ideology.”
Vasantha remembered and talked about the short time they spent together.
She told how even a day before her surgery, she had called Manjira and asked her to read a certain book and come the next day so that they could discuss it.
Another notable aspect of Sai was that he was a professor in Delhi University.
Vasanth remarked that teaching was an integral part of his life which he never saw in a vacuum.
“He always said, ‘We have to learn and spread what we’ve learned and give everyone a chance to learn.'”
Unfortunately, as fate would have it, Sai was dismissed from his job as an assistant professor in the college in March 2021. He was teaching there since 2003.
In fact, he said that his last wish also had these lines. “This is also his last wish, he had written a letter to some teachers and students. Through a poem, he expressed that he dreams of being in the classroom and teaching students again.
From Sai’s professorship days at Delhi University.
Vasantha questioned how he should have been reinstated after being acquitted and proven innocent. Although he wrote a letter to DU, he has not yet received any response on this matter.
The fact that their jobs were taken away was also a reaction to how they were labeled ‘urban Naxals’ – a term that gained popularity from 2017-18.
Sai and Vasanth: A Love Story
GN Saibaba and Vasantha in a framed picture in their Delhi home.
Vasantha met Sai in tuition decades ago when she was in 10th class. He needed help in English and Sai had some doubts in mathematics. Their tuition teacher instructed Vasantha to teach mathematics to Sai, while Sai taught her grammar.
Sai also wrote a poem dedicated to Vasantha from jail.
Sai’s dream of continuing teaching has been fulfilled in an unexpected way. His body has been donated to a medical college in Hyderabad.
“It was always a dream of his to teach students. Now his body has become another lesson to be taught to the students.”
