G.N. Saibaba's 2017 Prison Letter Sheds Light on the Rights of Disabled Prisoners

Professor G.N. Saibaba wrote a letter to disability rights activist Muralidharan from Nagpur central prison in October 2017.

It had been only a few months since Saibaba, a wheelchair user with over 90% disability, was handed a life sentence under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. He knew he was in for a long time, and from his past experience as an undertrial prisoner, Saibaba was fully aware of the further harm incarceration would cause to his already fragile body.

Within those few months of stay inside the ‘anda cell’ – an egg-shaped windowless enclosure – of Nagpur Central Prison, Saibaba’s health had already started failing.

In utter desperation, Saibaba wrote:

“My health has further deteriorated. Now I can feel irreparable damage being done to my internal organs. For the last month, I have been suffering from continuous fever. Pains in my stomach, left hand, and leg have reached uncontrollable levels.”

An English teacher facing incarceration for his political beliefs, he wanted to read more literature on disability. In the letter, he sought to understand the aspect of self-dignity that the prison environment had crudely denied him.

“I have refused to be carried to a government hospital outside the prison because I was once treated like baggage.”

He felt that his condition as a disabled man was far worse than that of pet animals in households.

“No dignity is left. One takes a pet to a hospital in a dignified manner.”

Saibaba approached Muralidharan because his organisation, the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD), had actively advocated for his release and demanded dignified living conditions for incarcerated persons with disabilities. Muralidharan told The Wire that he was unable to respond to Saibaba’s letter. “I was not sure if Saibaba would receive my letter in jail or if the authorities would actually allow my letter or books on disability to reach him,” he said.

Muralidharan’s apprehension was not unfounded; letters go through several rounds of scrutiny before reaching their intended recipients, and in some cases, they don’t make it at all.

Muralidharan shared that his organisation, NPRD, which is a cross-disability rights group, had approached many forums, including the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

NPRD highlighted how Saibaba faced humiliation and indignity in jail, despite India having ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). A team of NHRC officials had, in fact, even visited Saibaba in jail. “But the report was not made public. One doesn’t know what the delegate finally concluded,” Muralidharan said. Similar letters by the NPRD sent to other rights’ forum remained unanswered too. 

In his letter to Muralidharan, Saibaba had requested access to the then newly-passed Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act:

“Please send me the new Act and related critical material. I would like to train myself as an activist for disabled people in India.”

The 2016 law harps on dignity. Several legal provisions of this relatively recent legislation lay down punishment for ill-treatment of persons with disability. There were a series of ill-treatment that Saibaba and his wife had put out in public, even written to the judicial bodies. But no action ever came to be taken. Because he was a prisoner under judicial custody, Saibaba’s proper treatment in jail was also the judiciary’s responsibility. But it was overlooked. 

Soon after his release in April, Saibaba had said:

“I was in the anda cell for eight and a half years without a wheelchair. It was a daily struggle to use the toilet, take a bath, or even fetch myself a glass of water. The prison doesn’t have a single ramp for people like me. Now my heart is functioning at 55 percent capacity due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I am facing syncope attacks and fall unconscious. I suffered two attacks of COVID-19 and one of swine flu in prison but was not provided emergency medical treatment. A doctor had recommended a sleep study for me seven years ago, but it was never conducted. I was provided medicines sent by my family following my 10-day hunger strike inside the jail. I was refused permission to meet my dying mother or perform her last rites. Is the state’s role to serve people or crush humanity? In jail, I was treated like the biggest terrorist in the world.”

Saibaba’s case is one of the very few known instances of incarcerated persons with disabilities. Before his passing, another widely discussed case was that of Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest arrested in another highly questionable case of “urban Naxalism,” more famously known as the Elgar Parishad case. Swamy, an 84-year-old man with several health complications, including Parkinson’s disease, died in 2021 while in Taloja jail, awaiting timely and adequate treatment after contracting COVID-19.

The cases of Saibaba and Swamy gained public attention due to the activism that followed their arrests and the many petitions filed in higher courts and various rights commissions.

The National Crime Records Bureau, which releases prison statistics every year, includes several details about incarcerated individuals. However, there is no data on physical or mental disabilities among prisoners. Without such data, it is impossible to know how many incarcerated persons are struggling with mental or physical disabilities. Consequently, there is no policy in place to address their needs.

When Saibaba was first arrested, his wife, Vasantha Kumari, time and again insisted that his condition be given special consideration and that arrangements be made to ensure his well-being. Every few weeks, she made desperate appeals to the press, the state, and the judiciary to ensure that Saibaba did not die. Although Saibaba did not die in jail, he passed away months after his release. His death, occurring after his release, will, however, not be included in the NCRB data that records “deaths in prison”.

The Supreme Court intervenes

The Wire has extensively reported on the deaths of individuals in prisons due to inadequate and untimely medical treatment. Treatable illnesses are often ignored for extended periods, leading many to perish while awaiting hospital visits.

In the recent judgement passed in the ‘caste in prisons case’, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud spoke of disability as one of the grounds for discrimination along with caste and gender.

The court, turning a public interest litigation filed by this author, into a suo motu case and renaming it as ‘In Re: Discrimination Inside Prisons in India’, has directed the state governments to come back to court with steps taken to address the issue in three months. But for that, states will have to first acknowledge they have persons with disabilities locked inside prisons, collate data on different kinds of disabilities and then speak of different measures they have taken or will be taking in the future. This is an exercise that states are very unlikely to take up on their own. 

Although Saibaba’s health had severely deteriorated by the time he was released, he was keen on working on prison reforms, keeping disability at the heart of these long pending improvements. Muralidharan said that his organisation had been closely working with Saibaba on the same. “In our several rounds of discussions, Saibaba had shared of the many difficulties that an incarcerated person with disability faces in jail. He wanted to dedicate his time to the cause,” he added.