“No, it’s not possible,” were my first thoughts when I heard that Father Stan Swamy, an 83-year-old Jesuit priest and activist, had been arrested a second time. His crime? He defended the rights of the Adivasis exploited in his homeland, Jharkhand.
Father Swamy has been accused of having links to a Maoist plot related to the Bhima Koregaon case and was arrested by the National Investigation Agency on Thursday night. The rights activist is one of the kindest and kindest men I have ever met. So the whole premise, to anyone who knows it, is completely ridiculous. Funny even if it weren’t so tragic. You have Parkinson’s disease. Her hand shakes when she raises a cup of tea to her lips. He speaks so softly that you have to strain to hear him.
He assures his interrogators that he has no connection to the Maoists. Believe in peaceful and non-violent protest. I believe him. Because I know your integrity is beyond reproach.
I heard about Father Stan Swamy in the early seventies, because he was one of the first people I met who advocated living with the Adivasi community in Jharkhand to understand their lives and problems; to help find solutions and a way forward. I went there in the early seventies when I was still in college to write a story for our student magazine.
On a more personal note, Stan Swamy introduced my husband, also named Stan, to the adivasi world. He shared Father Swamy’s cabin in a Ho village in Jharkhand. My husband always told young activists:
“GandhiHeeThe non-violence was not merely moral or religious. It was strategic. Gandhi was a brilliant general. Although it sounds like an oxymoron. He understood that the fight for freedom could not be won with violence because ordinary Indians, even if they took to the streets with justice on their side, with God on their side, could never win. Even if there were thousands or thousands of people marching in protest, they could never match the power of the state. Before 1947, the British could take out the artillery and finish us off. One wrong step could have changed the course of our history. But the whole world watched with open mouths India’s nonviolent battle for independence. Nonviolence was a new word, a new tactic, made in India. The world sympathized and empathized. Gandhi’s strategic nonviolence was the most brilliant weapon in our war for Independence ‘
Social activists protest after the arrest of Father Stan Swamy by the NIA in the Bhima Koregaon case, in Ranchi, on October 9, 2020. Photo: PTI
The same scenario is unfolding today. And the average activist understands that putting villagers, adivasis, dalits or women in the line of fire is counterproductive and unfair. We learned this strategy from Gandhi and Jayaprakash Narayan.
In recent times, it has become the norm to equate the word activist with “anti-national.” But who is an activist? What do they do?
It is very simple. Across India, there are thousands of people who took up the cause of fighting for social justice for the poor, the marginalized and the voiceless. These people were inspired by the brightest and best minds in our country: GandhiHee to Vinobha Bhave to JP.
After Independence, when the battle for freedom was won, Gandhi urged his followers to come out and continue the fight for freedom. This time, it was to free the poorest from hunger and poverty, to teach and educate, to weave and spin, to spread harmony and peace. Thousands of people joined his call and Gandhi’s ashrams were filled with people determined to continue the fight for freedom on a new battlefield: the villages of India.
The 1960s saw the rise of the Dalit movement. New leaders emerged. Gandhi raised the issue of untouchability in the early days of the independence movement, but the Dalits later rejected his epithet “Harijan” as condescending. The power of the Dalits became a wake-up call, drawing inspiration from the African-American Black Panther movement. Dr. BR Ambedkar showed the way.
The term activist gained popularity during the JP movement and during the fight against the Emergency in the mid-1970s. After the Emergency, thousands of young patriots, taking inspiration from JP’s charism, accepted his challenge to go out and organize the poor, the less privileged and the vulnerable; to fight for their rights. This period saw a proliferation of human rights defenders, although the term was not used until later.
Women and men dedicated their lives to fighting for the rights of the Dalits, the rights of the Adivasis, the rights of women, the farmers’ unions and the fishermen’s movements. These activists evolved in their understanding of rights-based movements. They often lived with the communities with which they worked. They identified with the people and, although many were middle class, they tried to live a simpler life than that of their parents, than the background and privileged education in which they were born. They were delighted to be qualified activists and wore the badge with pride.
From the fifties and sixties, when gandhi prevailed, we went to the seventies where a radical change took place. Global thinking came to India from all over the world. The 1968 student movement in France, Latin American thought, Marxist ideology, all this gained ground and influenced the grassroots workers. The focus shifted from Gandhi’s passive way: delivering food, clothing, free education, and medicine to changing unfair situations at the base. ‘Daan‘or the mere giving was now old fashioned. Activists were trained to encourage people to ask who was cheating them and why. So if people were invading Adivasi or Dalit lands, it was time to establish basic human rights; It is time to equip people to defend themselves, to fight injustice, non-violently, Gandhian-style and strategic.
Soon, women’s groups began to act against dowry deaths and acid attacks, taking to the streets and courts to protest and demand justice. Dalit groups found lawyers willing to fight caste atrocity cases in court. The Adivasis had activists who urged them to defend their ancient and ancient territories from the dominant caste landowners who cheated and brazenly usurped their lands. Environmentalists and eco-warriors embraced the trees and prevented the forests from being bare. A great green movement started. The protest movements grew more and more.
In reality, these people are defending human rights and saving the Earth for future generations. When it comes to central India and the defense of tribal lands from powerful mining companies, the battle assumes David vs. Goliath proportions.
Stan Swamy and the Adivasis he supports in an impossible battle for their own ancestral lands are small pawns facing off against giant mining companies. Falsifying activists as Maoists is the easiest way to condemn them and allow vested interests to wipe them out.
The fragile 83-year-old has fabricated charges against him. However, it has a core of steel, an indomitable force that comes with moral conviction and a commitment to the truth and the powerless. While they were taking him to prison, Stan Swamy announced that he would begin a fast. His fellow Jesuits, who rushed to prison with their medicines, say he has refused to even take a sip of water.
I kept asking why, they would arrest this kind and gentle man. Father Cedric Prakash, who is also a Jesuit and an activist, said in a television interview: “It is to create a psychosis of fear. If you can imprison an 83-year-old man who has spent his life committed to the poor, who is safe? ”.
Asianet called to interview my husband Stan. People warned him: “You will draw attention to yourself. It can boomerang and have an impact on your work at Nilgiris. “
Our arrival here in 1986 began with the protection of the Adivasi land from thugs and invaders. Friends, good people, came together to provide health and education. If this invites the wrath of the powers that be, like Stan Swamy, we can only say, “So be it.”
Mari Marcel Thekaekara is a freelance writer, who has focused on social issues in magazines and newspapers including the Hindu, statesman, Times of India, Indian Express, Frontline, Economic and Political Weekly, Outlook magazine, Hindustan Times, Seminar, Infochange (an online resource base providing news on crucial sustainable development and social justice issues in India and South Asia), and New internationalist Y guardian in the United Kingdom.
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