GN Saibaba, who died this weekend at the age of 57 from post-operative complications, serves as a case study in how the state should not act on his concerns. The DU professor was first arrested in 2014, along with five others, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, for allegedly having links with banned Maoist groups. He was acquitted in 2022, after the Bombay High Court found no valid sanction from the UAPA, but the Supreme Court overturned the verdict the next day. He was acquitted again in March this year, after the High Court ruled that “the entire prosecution… was flawed” and was released.

Saibaba spent nearly a decade in prison for a crime he did not legally commit but was suspected of by state authorities. Innocent until proven guilty is a pillar not only of the law, but also of any truly liberal society. Dissent and divergent, even opposing, opinions alone cannot constitute the basis for the deployment of a mechanism that, by itself, presumes guilt and incarcerates. In Saibaba’s case, the state’s failure to demonstrate, through evidence, the validity of its accusations did little to support India’s claims that it was an open and liberal political regime. This is not about diluting the laws that protect the nation. On the contrary, it is about preserving their sacred character so that they are not exploited under the guise of “national security”.

An overzealous mai-baap state runs the risk of transforming into a vindictive state. In this, the crowd can be fed a heightened “threat perception” where protesting students, agitating farmers, dissident citizens are all presented as “enemies of the state”. Honing such hypersensitivity is the business of police states, not a liberal democracy capable of managing a country that answers to itself.