St Xavier’s College in Mumbai cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture just days before the scheduled event, following protests from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student organisation affiliated with the RSS.
The lecture, titled “Migration for Livelihood: Hope amidst Miseries,” was due to take place virtually on 9 August, delivered by Father Prem Xalxo from the college’s department of inter-religious studies.
ABVP Mumbai secretary Prashant Mali submitted a strongly worded letter to the college principal, objecting to the commemoration of the late Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist. Mali alleged that Father Swamy was a prime accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case and had been arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), an anti-terrorism law. The letter further claimed that Swamy had links to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).
Following the written protest and a meeting between an ABVP delegation and college administrators, the management cancelled the lecture on 6 August, citing “unavoidable circumstances.”
Father Stan Swamy died in judicial custody on 5 July 2021, months after his arrest in October 2020 for allegedly supporting Maoist rebels. The 84-year-old priest suffered from Parkinson’s disease and other age-related ailments before dying of cardiac arrest at Holy Family Hospital. He had spent decades working alongside Adivasi communities in Jharkhand, advocating for their rights to land, forest and livelihood.
Jesuit Father Frazer Mascarenhas, the former principal of St Xavier’s College who was declared Swamy’s next of kin by the Bombay High Court, strongly disputed the ABVP’s allegations. “The ABVP accusations against Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy are totally unfounded because the Pune Police and now the NIA, have so far only made allegations against him and have been unable to prove them in a court of law for more than 5 years,” he told Crux news agency.
Mascarenhas revealed that the Jesuits had filed two cases in the Bombay High Court to clear Father Stan’s name and seek compensation for “false charges and the ill-treatment in jail which cost him his life.” He noted that the legal case had not yet begun and might face indefinite delays.
“We quite understand that it will be difficult for the ABVP activists to appreciate such finer points of reasoning, but it is regrettable that this has led to the cancellation of a meaningful Memorial Lecture,” Mascarenhas said. “One can gauge the state of democracy our country has degenerated to.”
This marks the second time events commemorating Father Swamy have faced opposition from Hindu nationalist groups. In October 2021, another Jesuit institution in Mangaluru withdrew plans to name a park after the priest following similar protests.
Father George Pattery, former provincial of South Asia, called the cancellation “a sad comment on our sense of justice.”
