Remembering Activist Fr. Stan Swamy On His 2nd Death Anniversary

Swamy was a Jesuit priest who spent long years working among Advasis in Jharkhand. He died on 5th July in 2021, while under judicial custody in Mumbai, hours before his appeal for bail was to be heard. His death is considered by activists as custodial murder.

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Swamy studied theology and did a Masters in Sociology at the University of Manila after joining the Jesuit order. From 1975 till 1986, he served as Director of the Jesuit-run Indian Social Institute at Bangalore.

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Swamy while working among tribals, raised many uncomfortable questions to the authorities and corporates because of which they termed his as an "urban Naxal".

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He had widely researched and was vocal about the "indiscriminate" arrest of thousands of young adivasis by investigating agencies after labelling them as ''Naxals'' and had even filed a public interest petition in the Jharkhand High Court against the state, asking for all such undertrial prisoners to be released on a personal bond, and also for conducting a speedy trial.

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Another of his movements which sought implementation of a Supreme Court order which said "Owner of the land is also the owner of sub-soil minerals" made him extremely unpopular with the mining barons who have a stranglehold on the state’s economy.

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The Pune police had raided and interrogated Stan in Bagaicha, his home in Ranchi twice once on 28 August 2018, and 12 June 2019, accusing him of having links with the Bhima Koregaon case.

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Swamy, a cancer patient who also had the Parkisons disease, was arrested from his home in Ranchi on October 8, 2020. Despite protestations that he had never been to Bhima Koregaon, he was taken to Mumbai where he was produced before a court and remanded to judicial custody. He was famously known to be the oldest person to be arrested under the UAPA. He died in jail.

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"I am ready to pay the price, whatever be it. But we will sing in chorus. A caged bird can still sing.” Father Stan Swamy

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