WHY DO YOU FEAR MY WAYS SO MUCH

In the afternoon of 9th May 2014, a posse of policemen stopped a car in Delhi and pulled out a wheelchair-bound man on his way home from work. He was then flown to Nagpur, where he was arrested under UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act), the draconian anti-terror law. His wheelchair was damaged as he was hauled up and thrown into the police vehicle and the nerves of his left hand were injured, an infection that later spread and rendered both his hands virtually useless.

This man was G.N. Saibaba, professor of English at Delhi University, scholar, writer and human rights activist. In the eyes of the Indian government, he was a dangerous threat to the State, accused of ‘waging war against the nation’. In March 2017, the Gadchiroli Sessions Court sentenced him to life imprisonment for alleged links with a banned organisation, CPI-Maoist. Saibaba’s appeal against the judgement, challenging the police evidence and witnesses, has been pending in the Nagpur High Court for five years. Meanwhile, he is kept in solitary confinement, denied the medical care he needs.

What would cause government agencies to take such an action against a man paralysed by polio from the age of five, suffering from 90 per cent disability as well as a cardiac condition and chronic and severe spinal pain?