Fr Stan Swamy SJ, martyr of the marginalised
Fr Stan Swamy SJ, martyr of the marginalised
Circumstances behind his death:
On October 8, 2020, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India arrested Fr. Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist known for upholding the rights of Adivasis and Dalits (groups at the bottom of India's social and economic hierarchy). Fr. Stan alongside several other prominent Dalit and Adivasi rights activists, were charged with several sections of the Indian Penal Code and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) counterterrorism laws for inciting caste-based violence through speeches on December 31, 2017, that resulted in violent clashes in Bhima Koregaon and neighboring villages near Pune, Maharashtra state, where hundred of thousands of Dalits had gathered to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon, which was won by the British army — largely comprising soldiers from the lower caste Dalit community — against the upper caste Peshwas in 1818.
The following day, he was incarcerated at the Taloja Central Jail. Fr. Stan said that the NIA presented several extracts before him claiming they were taken from his computer implicating his connection to Maoists. “I told them all these were fabrications stealthily put into my computer and I disowned them,” his statement said. He also denied allegations of Maoist links, and said in the video that he has never been to Bhima Koregaon. Stan Swamy said, “If you question this form of unfettered development, you are labeled anti-development, which is equal to anti-government, which is equal to anti-national. A simple equation. This is why government calls me a Maoist, although I am completely opposed to Maoist methods, and have nothing to do with them”.
“I would just add that what is happening to me is not unique. It is a broader process that is taking place all over the country. We are all aware how prominent intellectuals, lawyers, writers, poets, activists, students, leaders, they are all put into jail because they have expressed their dissent or raised questions about the ruling powers of India. We are part of the process. In a way I am happy to be part of this process. I am not a silent spectator, but part of the game, and ready to pay the price whatever be it”, he had said.
Marking his 100 days of incarceration in jail, Fr. Stan had written in a letter, “My needs are limited,” he wrote. “The Adivasis and the Society of Jesus have taught me to lead a simple life… Listening to the life narratives of the poor prisoners is my joy in Taloja Jail… I see God in their pains and smiles… Many of such poor undertrials don’t know what charges have been put on them, have not seen their chargesheet and just remain for years without any legal or other assistance. But we still sing in chorus. A caged bird can still sing.”
Fr. Stan was never put on trial and his requests for bail were repeatedly denied, despite his deteriorating health. Just before his death in April 2021, the special NIA court had rejected his medical bail saying: “Prima facie it can be gathered that Fr. Stan, along with other members of the banned organisation, hatched a serious conspiracy to create unrest in the entire country and to overpower the government, politically and by using muscle power.”
On July 5, 2021, Fr. Stan died in state custody in Holy Family Hospital reportedly from cardiac arrest following his contraction of COVID-19 in May 2021. The staff of the hospital, run by the Ursuline Sisters of Mary Immaculate, ensured every care to make the last month of Fr. Stan's life comfortable.
Even in death he was hounded. In August 2021, the National Investigation Agency submitted draft charges to a special court in Mumbai, claiming that Fr. Stan and others accused in the case were active members of the banned terrorist organization Communist Party of India.
In February 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released an opinion, declaring Fr. Stan's detention arbitrary and his death "utterly preventable." The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) has also expressed their concern. In a statement, spokesperson Liz Throssell said, “High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet and the UN's independent experts have repeatedly raised the cases of Father Stan and 15 other human rights defenders associated with the same events with the Government of India over the past three years and urged their release from pre-trial detention.” The UN rights chief “has also raised concerns over the use of the UAPA in relation to human rights defenders, a law Father Stan was challenging before Indian courts days before he died”.
Let's meet the man behind the legend:
Rev Fr. Stanislaus Lourduswamy SJ (26 April 1937 – 5 July 2021), popularly known as Stan Swamy, was an activist, social worker and Jesuit priest who spent many decades fighting for the rights of the indigenous Adivasis in Jharkhand, India, who lived in abject poverty despite coming from a region of tremendous natural wealth.
He arrived in the district of Singhbhum in the mid-1970s, when he was part of the Tribal Research and Training Centre (TRTC) created by the Jesuits in Lupungutu near Chaibasa, in what is now the state of Jharkhand. His realm of research was not restricted to books in the library, he would go from one village to another, meeting the Adivasis (previously known as the untouchables), speaking to them and getting to know their culture and struggles firsthand - which he found very eye opening.
Here he recounts one such encounter in a September 2019 interview with India Development Review (IDR): "I was staying at a student’s home during mango season. One morning, we were sitting in their courtyard, under a mango tree, filled with fruits. My student’s father pointed to a few branches of the tree and asked him to bring down all the fruits that were ripe. The boy did as he was told, and we enjoyed some of the fruits together. But my attention was drawn to a branch of the tree, which was still laden with ripe mangoes. The boy’s father had not asked him to pluck any fruits from that branch, and I thought that perhaps he had failed to notice it. So, I plucked up some courage, pointed to the branch and said, “There are plenty of ripe fruits on this branch. Why didn’t you ask your son to pick those too?” He responded very simply, saying, “Those are fruits for the birds of the air. Nature has given freely, and so, we share freely. This incident forced me to question my value system. I spent a few more years during my 20s with the Adivasis, learning their language, understanding their lives, their economy and their social setup."
Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, believed that it is always important to do the “one thing necessary”, Fr. Stan said. In this case, it meant the need to get to the root of oppression of the poor so that their liberation would be a possibility.
Fr. Stan discovered that the Marxist tools of analysis were most apt to understand social transformation and the central agency of peoples’ struggles. Even under the dark clouds of the 21 month of Rule of Emergency imposed by then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during 1975-77 - he mobilised underground meetings where locals could safely debate and discuss their socio-political rights into the wee hours of the Chaibasa night. Like a maestro, he nurtured their inquisitive minds and channeled their anger into meaningful discussion focused on reading between the lines and thinking out of the box. Under his tutelage, his students were encouraged to question the status quo. Nothing was sacrosanct including authority, social norms, civic laws, conventional wisdom and even the very existence of God.
Fr. Stan then went abroad for further studies and returned to become the Director at the Indian Social Institute (ISI) in Bangalore. Here he got an opportunity to not only sharpen this understanding but also motivate the youth to engage in social action exposing to them the insidious nexus between corruption of state institutions and the reckless exploitation of the poorest of poor. Many of his students went on to become social activists/teachers. Many Christian missionaries who attended his training programmes were using prevalent corporate management techniques but after attending his workshops they started engaging in grassroots activities championed by Fr. Stan. Another priceless contribution of Fr. Stan to his students, and indeed to society at large, was to cast aside differences of religions, castes and communities in the struggle for justice. He emphasised that for the true activist these distinctions were immaterial, what mattered was the good of the common man, a creation of God.
But the anguished cry of the Adivasi proved irresistible so in 1990 Fr. Stan returned to Jharkhand. He found vast swaths of indigent people being displaced from their traditional lands rich in mineral resources. Their courage in the face of overwhelming odds was transformational. One Adivasi said, “jaan denge, par zameen nahi denge!” (I will give up my life, but I will never give up my land). Fr. Stan quickly realised what they needed was to understand the dynamics of modern society and develop appropriate strategies on how best to use the tools available to resist the unwarranted displacement and save their way of life. This includes questioning the non-implementation of the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which stipulated the setting up of a Tribes Advisory Council with members solely of the Adivasi community for their protection, well-being and development in the State.
Sensing a glimmer of hope, the locals started organising themselves in 'aam sabhas' (community meetings). Fr. Stan gave the example of the grassroots movement to protest the construction of two large dams across the Koel and Karl rivers which would have submerged 132 villages not to mention 50,000 acres of agricultural lands and 20,000 acres of forests. Possessing no capital they used their ingenuity to spread the word by using a coded drum signal. Each village on hearing the code, would relay it to the surrounding villages - this meant there was a community meeting the next day. And volunteers from the surroundings would travel by foot bringing with them 'ek mukki chawal, ek rupya paisa' (a handful of rice and one rupee) to fund the movement. In response the police opened fire on a peaceful aam sabha in the village of Tapkara on 2nd February, 2001 when eight people were killed in cold blood. But rather than abandon their movement in the face of the brutal state sponsored repression, this emboldened the community - we've shed our blood there is nothing more to lose -
An insidious ploy was to use local police and judiciary to falsely implicate young people of being seditious Naxalite or Maoist insurgents, a charge echoed in the newspaper which were tools in the hands of unscrupulous and rapacious land developers. Fr. Stan visited 18 remote districts to speak to over 100 alleged undertrials, 97% of whom professed their innocence of the crimes attributed to them by the police. The justice system meant to protect the most vulnerable was being used to inflict the most harm in the form of harassment, intimidation and re-arrest even for those released on bail. Estimates put the number of incarcerated destitute Adivasis and Dalits at over 5000. So Fr. Stan filed a public interest litigation (PIL) against the State Government of Jharkhand in the local High Court demanding prisoners be released on a personal bond, speedy trials and release of information for all undertrials in the state. The High Court agreed and in January 2018 ordered the State to furnish the information for each and every jail in the state.
Fr. Stan gave another example of exemplary courage shown by one Dayamani Barla from the Munda tribe. When the International industrial power house ArcelorMittal arbitrarily decided to sequester over 12,000 acres of land for a steel plant in Gumla-Khunti, they did not count on Dayamani. She single handedly went from village to village creating awareness that led to a grassroots protest against displacement from their lands. When ArcelorMittal realised they couldn't finagle their way, they tried to hoodwink the poor people by supplying brand new ambulances fully equipped and staffed with doctors and nurses bringing free quality health services to this underserved area. But the villagers smelling a rat refused to be part of this charade and sent the vans back. Finally ArcelorMittal tried to negotiate for 800 acres as opposed to the initial 12,000 acres land grab but the locals were united in rejecting the offer, and a chastened multinational had to leave empty handed.
Fr Stan was quick to realise that in addition to the misery of the oppressed people, their brightest minds sought to cut ties with their roots and seek a more peaceful life in the cities far from the mayhem. This forced migration was an existential threat so Fr. Stan created the Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan, a peoples’ movement against displacement.
Fr. Stan spoke passionately to his own Jesuit brethren, urging them to help not in the name of God but simply for the sake of the oppressed. At the annual convention of the Forum for Justice and Peace in Ranchi in 2019 he said (and I paraphrase), “I warn the institutions of the Church that they would increasingly become millstones around the neck of the Church. I request the Church establishments to deinstitutionalise themselves, open themselves to people’s movements and offer them logistical support in their actions. The communities and residences of priests and nuns should become open houses for the people in the neighbourhood, especially the poor and activists involved in justice issues.” He urged his clerical brethren to follow the example of Jesus of Nazareth saying, "The historical Jesus of Nazareth was a revolutionary whereas the Jesus of the Christians has been deified and imprisoned inside our Churches and institutions”.
Meghanath, his student at the Indian Social Institute (ISI), Bangalore in the 1980s, said, "Father Stan was not only a teacher, he was a friend and a comrade in arms. He worked for people on the ground with them. He always stood for human dignity, even in his last days in jail. He tirelessly fought for jal (water), jungle (forest) and zameen (land) for tribal people."
His life and work inspired many, but with characteristic humility, he stated from jail that “I do not want any followers, each person should follow his or her conscience and inner call and decide for oneself”. His life should inspire India's 1,30,000 professed religious to live in solidarity with the most deprived, defending their rights and dignity, and bringing God's kingdom of love, justice and peace to all here on Earth.
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