I first saw Suryavati, lovingly called Amma by her children and their comrades, 24 years ago, weeping inconsolably during the funeral procession of her daughter, Ganga Bhavani, who had been killed in a staged encounter in Telangana in 2000.
The depth of her grief was overwhelming then, but it wouldn’t be the last time the Indian state would break her heart. A few years later, her son, G.N. Saibaba, became the next target, falsely implicated in a state-concocted case in 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
When I went to meet Vasantha, Saibaba’s wife, in 2018 to learn more about his case, I encountered Amma again. I couldn’t speak much with her at that time – there was a heaviness in my chest, a deep sense of guilt for the comfort in my own life while she endured unimaginable suffering. I feared the questions she might ask about her son’s release, knowing I had no answers to offer.
But, months later, I decided to call her just to clear my own guilt of not talking to her before. I made a video call through Ramdev, her younger son. As soon as she appeared on the screen, I asked, “Amma [mother], how are you? Do you remember me? I visited your home last year.”
“I’m fine, dear. You must have come, but I don’t remember,” she replied, her voice soft and fragile, like her visibly weakened body.
“Amma, you’ve become so frail in just a year,” I said instinctively, unable to hold back my concern.
“Yes, dear, I came close to death. It’s the medicines that are keeping me alive now,” she said, almost whispering now.
But then she began speaking in a slightly stronger voice. She spoke without pause, she began speaking of what was weighing on her heart: “Yes, son. We must talk. We must find a way to bring my son out. All my worries are about him. Why does the government target him so much? Can he even walk? Can he lift anything? Can he fire a gun?”
Her voice cracked under the weight of the injustice she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I had feared this moment because I had thought she might believe that someone like me, an outsider living a ‘normal’ life, could help free her son. But in her words, I also heard a call to action – an unspoken plea to the world to keep questioning, keep pushing and not let her son’s voice be silenced.
This son, Saibaba, was no ordinary man. He was a scholar, a public intellectual and an activist who had dared to speak for the voiceless. But the state, relentless in its cruelty, propagated blatant lies about him – that he was conspiring with the oppressed to ‘overthrow the mighty state’ from the confines of his wheelchair. So, they thought they would silence him by throwing him into solitary confinement.
And here was his mother, who had nurtured him with unwavering love, still believing that the truth would set him free.
Also read: G.N. Saibaba’s 2017 Prison Letter Sheds Light on the Rights of Disabled Prisoners
Suryavati began recounting Saibaba’s early life. “We come from a small village called Janupalle, about three kilometres from Amalapuram [in Andhra Pradesh]. I have three children. The eldest is Sai, then Ganga Bhavani and the youngest is Ramdev. There’s a six-year gap between my older and younger sons.
“Sai was walking fine until he was three, but by the time he turned four, he began stumbling. When we took him to the local doctor, he said, ‘It’s just leg pain, nothing to worry about.’
“But one night, Sai couldn’t move from where he had fallen. We rushed him to the hospital. When nothing improved, and he eventually became completely immobile, like a lump, we took him to Visakhapatnam and Puttaparthi. One doctor there even told me, ‘How did you manage to bring him here? I can’t guarantee his survival.’
“He stayed in the hospital for a month. Slowly, he regained some movement. But we spent everything we had, and when we couldn’t afford to stay longer, we brought him home. From then on, my son began crawling, using his hands.
“He loved studying, but going to school was difficult. So, he studied at home until the third grade. After school, children from near our home would come to teach him. But in fourth grade, he started to crawl to school every day. When Ramdev turned six, he learned to ride a bicycle and would take his brother everywhere.”
I asked, “Did you take Saibaba to the doctor again?”
“When Sai was in the seventh grade, our family doctor told us that some orthopedic surgeons were coming for a medical camp. They suggested surgery, and we agreed. We stayed in the hospital for four months. After the surgery, to strengthen his legs and stretch his muscles, we hung sandbags as weights from his legs.
“Sai bore the pain, but he never stopped asking about his exams. Even when they had to carry him from his bed to the exam hall, he stood first in the class. The doctors suggested that for further improvement, he would need bigger surgeries, but those could only be done in Russia. He wrote to them immediately, but they said there were no guarantees, and we didn’t have the money to go anyway.”
As Amma spoke, two images formed in my mind. One, a young Sai, bedridden, enduring pain but worried about his exams. The other, Prof Saibaba in the anda cell, half-paralysed in solitary confinement, imagining the world through his poetry.
Both images revealed a resolute self-confidence and a dedication to his beliefs that no physical condition could break. He had put his life on the line for his political ideals. That is why he dared to declare, “I refuse to die.” The state had long been defeated by his indomitable spirit.
As Amma talked about education, I asked, “Did all three of your children attend school?”
“Ganga Bhavani passed the seventh grade. After that, she said, ‘We need to make a living, Amma. How will we manage if we all continue studying? Let them both study,’ and she dropped out of school herself. She learned how to sew on her own and started stitching clothes. She worked very hard to support the household,” she said.
Hearing about Ganga Bhavani, I wondered why, in society, it is often women who lead with love and sacrifice. She started by giving up her education for her family and then made the world her family. In the path she chose – fighting for the liberation of the oppressed – she ultimately sacrificed her very life.
Still, I thought Ganga Bhavani’s income from sewing wouldn’t have been enough to support her two brothers, and asked another question: “Did you have any other sources of income as well?”
“We had three acres of land. But their father lost all the land. Eventually, he just did whatever work he could find,” she said. I tried probing further, “How did you lose the land?”
“Their father was not in a position to farm, so he leased the land to a man who was a relative and we moved to Amalapuram to make a living. The man used to give us lease money once a year.
“One time, when we needed money for the children’s school fees, I sent them to ask for the lease payment. The man replied, ‘I will no longer give you any lease money. Your father borrowed Rs 4,000 from me and, unable to repay, sold the land to me.’
“None of us knew about this loan, nor where the money had gone. That’s how he grabbed our three acres of fertile land for just Rs 4,000. From that point on, it was nothing but struggle.”
I wanted to know more about the land dispute. I asked Ramdev, who was sitting next to her, if he could clarify how they had been deceived by the man. He immediately responded, “The man who leased the land claimed he had lent our father Rs 4,000 and had the land registered in his name.
“Now, the land is worth around Rs 60 lakh per acre. To fight for it, Sai and I filed a case through a lawyer we knew. At that time, Sai was in the tenth grade, and I was in the sixth grade.
“But in court, our father wouldn’t open his mouth to defend himself. So, we had to settle the case outside. They agreed to pay us Rs 1,80,000, but after all the debts and expenses were deducted, we were left with only Rs 70,000.
“However, we didn’t know where to keep that money. We didn’t even have a bank account back then. Our lawyer said, ‘If you keep the money, your father will waste it. I’ll hold it for you and give you interest every month.’ So, the money stayed with him for a long time and that was what we used to cover our household expenses. When we moved to Hyderabad, the lawyer gave us the remaining money.”
Ramdev continued, “On top of that, when the new NTR ration cards were being issued, the local tahsildar assigned the verification work to students like us who had some schooling. Sai and I went door-to-door, collecting details and verifying them for the issuance of ration cards. We earned forty paisa per card. Since we did this after school, we were earning around Rs 20 a week.”
Amma then added, “The children also earned some money during exams by providing water to the students. It wasn’t much, but it helped.”
“What do you mean by providing water during exams?” I was intrigued as I hadn’t seen this kind of arrangement.
“Back then, during the tenth-grade exams, if a student was thirsty, my younger son would pour water into a glass and serve them. They paid him a small amount for doing that,” she explained.
I understood then that they did whatever work they found to make ends meet, while also continuing their own education.
“Can you tell me about Sai’s education, Amma?” And she began to speak.
“From the beginning, he loved studying. He always came first in everything, and because of that, all his teachers loved him. No one ever made fun of him or belittled him for not being able to walk. Everyone took great care of him.
“When he was in the tenth grade, he topped the entire district. From that point, he began tutoring other students. But he never took a single rupee for it. Even though our house was small, we had plenty of open space, so all the kids would come and sit there to study. That’s how he made many friends, and they all treated him like he was a part of their family.
“From the time he was in tenth grade, Vasantha, who was also in his class, became close to him. After tenth grade, when they all began to go to college, his friends would take him there. They’d tell Ramdev, ‘You don’t have to worry, Bujji, we’ll take him ourselves,’ and they would take him and bring him back.”
Perhaps it was out of gratitude to the students who came to his home to teach him until the third grade that Sai never accepted money for tutoring. Taking from society and giving back to it – this principle must have shaped Saibaba’s deep sense of solidarity with the working class.
According to Ramdev, after tenth grade, Saibaba took the entrance exam for a polytechnic course and was offered a free seat at Kakinada Polytechnic College. However, when he arrived there, the teachers discouraged him, saying, ‘You are disabled; it will be very difficult to do the practicals.’
Also read: The Unbreakable GN Saibaba
Disheartened, he returned home. Still passionate about science, he enrolled in the mathematics, physics and chemistry group at SKBR College in Amalapuram. However, the practical exams were difficult for him even in intermediate (the eleventh and twelfth grades), mainly because the lab was on the second floor, making it very hard for him to access it.
You have to wonder – will our society ever build institutions with physical infrastructure that accommodates people with disabilities?
After intermediate, keeping his physical limitations in mind, he switched to doing a B.A. in English at the same college. That’s where Vasantha also completed her intermediate and under-graduation.
After completing his bachelor’s degree, Saibaba went on to pursue his postgraduate studies at the Hyderabad Central University. It was there that student movements, particularly the Mandal Commission movement, deeply influenced him. He began to explore the roots of societal issues related to caste, class, gender and race.
Later, while pursuing his M.Phil. at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, he further sharpened his political consciousness. Around this time, he married Vasantha, and the entire family moved to Hyderabad.
Once in Hyderabad, Ganga Bhavani, inspired by her brother, became involved in a women’s organisation, and her growing commitment led her to become a full-time activist in the revolutionary movement. After working for nearly five years, she was killed in a fake encounter in Nalgonda district in 2000.
By then, Saibaba was in Delhi, pursuing his Ph.D. He also secured a job as an English lecturer at Ram Lal Anand College, Delhi University. Even until the time he left for Delhi, he couldn’t afford a wheelchair. He crawled his way from Amalapuram to Delhi. From there, he stood in solidarity with the struggles of the oppressed as a public intellectual.
For this “crime”, the state conspired against him and falsely implicated him in cases that led to the pronouncement of a life sentence.
After discussing all this, I asked Amma, “They killed your daughter, they’ve imprisoned your son. After enduring so much pain, what do you think about their participation in social movements?”
With pride, she replied, “My children have done nothing wrong. They are fighting for the betterment of others, and that makes me happy.”
I tried another question, “Maybe others will benefit, but what have you gained from all this?”
She replied again, “If everyone only thinks about what they gain, how will people live? We may endure suffering, but at least others will live better, right?”
Isn’t that the truth? Movements don’t just shape the children; they also shape the mothers. Despite the immense pain she has endured, this mother continues to embody the spirit of resistance.
Finally, she said, “I want to go to Modi and ask – not to release my son, but to tell me what crime he committed. One day, the government will realise its mistake, and my son will come out. I believe that. But people like you must write and speak out strongly,” she added.
Her belief was unshakeable, even as her body withered away. And that belief triumphed when, on March 5, 2024, the Bombay high court dismissed all charges against Saibaba, declaring that he had committed no crime. But she was no longer there to welcome her beloved son, the one she had worried about her entire life.
When she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Saibaba petitioned both the prison authorities and the court system to allow him to see his mother one last time. But both institutions turned their backs and refused him parole. She passed away in August 2020, leaving behind a heart-wrenching void.
Imagine the torment – the mother, waiting in vain to hold her son one last time, and the son, helpless and imprisoned, unable to be by her side in her final moments. The woman who raised him with strength and hope, who had endured so much, left this world with a broken heart. How must Saibaba have felt when he received the news of her death? Alone in that desolate prison, who was there to comfort him?
On March 8, 2024, when he spoke to the national media, Saibaba remained strong while discussing the inhuman conditions in jail, the persecution of Adivasis, the failures of the judiciary and the sheer cruelty of the state. But the moment he mentioned his mother, his voice cracked, and he broke down in tears before the cameras.
“It’s true,” he said. “All her worries were for me. She raised me with her own hands. But she never wanted us, her children, to live only for ourselves. She encouraged us to be part of the people’s movements.”
Before he was imprisoned, Saibaba had no severe health issues. It was the merciless brutality of the prison system that ravaged his body and health. This is exactly what the state intended – to push him to the brink of no return, to make sure he either remained broken or died. The state’s wish has finally come true.
But, if she were alive today, wouldn’t this mother have asked the state, “Why did you kill my son?”
Her unasked question lingers, haunting us all.
Ashok Kumbamu is a sociologist and a member of the International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India.
