G.N. Saibaba, 1967-2024

By Princess Harmony

Gokarakonda Naga Saibaba (G.N. Saibaba) passed away on Oct. 12 in Hyderabad, India. Saibaba was a communist revolutionary and founding member of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), established in 2005, and belonged to the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, which was founded by the late Jose Maria Sison, leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

G.N. Saibaba was disabled and used a wheelchair due to a childhood battle with polio. Undergoing medical care this year at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, Saibaba had a heart attack and was declared dead shortly thereafter.

On May 9, 2014, Saibaba and five others were arrested for alleged ties to the Communist Party of India (Maoist). He was accused of waging war against the bourgeois state, under the aegis of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, a law established to undermine the revolutionary movement in India. Other revolutionaries in India have been targeted by this law, including the author Arundhati Roy, who was an ally and supporter of G.N. Saibaba.

In 2017, Saibaba was sentenced to life imprisonment for supporting the CPI (Maoist) and the RDF, both organizations marked as illegal under the world’s largest bourgeois “democracy.” His supporters never let up the fight against his imprisonment. In 2022, he and five others were acquitted by the Bombay High Court after attorneys argued that the evidence used against him was “flimsy.” (thenewsminute.com, Oct. 13) They were not released, however, after that acquittal.

Saibaba established the “Forum Against War on People,” a group of intellectuals organized against Operation Green Hunt, through which the Indian state targeted revolutionary communists. Many leading working-class and peasant leaders were arrested or killed. The Forum also fought back against the persecution of Adivasis, who are indigenous peoples in India.

Saibaba said that of all the epochs in human history, capitalism was the shortest lived, and the Soviet and Chinese experiences showed the weakness of capitalism. He knew that all liberalism could offer the oppressed of India was more exploitation in the name of capitalist expansion. Under the banner of “Rise! Resist! Liberate!” Saibaba and the RDF pushed forward communism and the revolution in Southeast Asia.

In March 2024, Saibaba and his codefendants — one of whom had already passed away — were acquitted again by the Bombay High Court and released from prison. This acquittal was the result of the movement in India and across the world to fight for this legendary revolutionary. Unfortunately, Indian prisons routinely engage in torture of prisoners, legally according to the Prison Act of 1894, which Saibaba experienced.

In October of 2024, the same year he was released, Saibaba was found to need gallbladder surgery. This common surgery came with uncommon and unfortunate complications, including the heart attack that killed him.

The International Relations Committee of Workers World Party sends its love, well-wishes and support to the loved ones of G.N. Saibaba and all the proletarian and peasant revolutionaries of India. We acknowledge that he was a powerhouse in the movement to liberate India from casteism and capitalist oppression.

Rest in power G.N. Saibaba!

Build a workers’ world!