HYDERABAD: “The jail walls are very high and there is only a single lamp giving him light. As a result, he could not even write or read. Without reading and writing a man can’t survive.” These are the emotional words the friends of revolutionary poet Varavara Rao said as they held a press conference here on Tuesday demanding bail on merit for the 79-year-old intellectual.
They made the demand after 121 days have passed since the poet was arrested along with 9 other activists in the Bhima Koregaon violence. Rao was booked under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, sedition and several other Sections that confined him to the jail since November 26 last year.
His family is now appealing to the Chief Justice of India to grant bail to him on the grounds of his advancing age and deteriorating health. “He has been apprehended and sent to jail since I was 7 years old and to this date he has never shied away from it and stands for what he believes. However, this time the cases were all fabricated and his health has deteriorated tremendously,” Sahaja, Varavara Rao’s elder daughter, said.
The family has now written an open letter to the CJI, which was endorsed by over 600 academicians, intellectuals, activists and professors appealing for Varavara’s bail. “He has never involved himself in anything criminal, but has been implicated in over 25 cases in 45 years of which 12 were withdrawn by the government. Of the other 13, he has been acquitted in two. He has spent 7 years in jail as under trial. However, he was much younger then and keeping in good health,” Hemalatha, the poet’s wife said. She requested the Chief Justice “to look into the malafide intentions and the manner in which the case is made out and also order his immediate release pending the judicial trial.”Rao has been suffering from piles, BP, diabetes and other age-related health conditions making the jail term difficult.
‘Govt demonising dissenters’
Several intellectuals noted that the ruling government has been demonising people who question their acts. “It is not just about Varavara. This approach of the government towards dissent that is affecting us all,” noted Professor Haragopal. Stating that in the Indian judiciary, jail was exception and bail, the rule, they added that the treatment meted out to the literary critic was inhuman. At least 100 democrats from State undersigned the open letter.