The Telegraph / by Umanand Jaiswal
Guwahati-based social scientist Father Walter Fernandes on Wednesday said the arrest of tribal rights advocate Father Stan Swamy from Ranchi had “implications” for the Northeast, which too had witnessed arrests of rights activists and the displacement of tribal communities in the name of development.
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15/10/2020
Scroll.in / by John Dayal
The Jesuit priest has sought to interpret his vocation and training in Ignatius Loyola’s philosophy in the service of the most deprived, the most threatened.
In one of those coincidences, 83-year-old Stan Swamy was arrested by India’s high-profile National Investigation Agency about the same time that another octogenarian, Francis, was declaring that all men and women in the world are brothers and sisters, with responsibility to each other and to the earth on which they all live, its resources, its environment, its climate.
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13/10/2020
BBC News / by Soutik Biswas
On Thursday evening, detectives from India’s National Investigation Agency arrived in an SUV at a red and white building on the outskirts of Ranchi in India’s eastern state of Jharkhand.
There they picked up Father Stan Swamy, an ailing 83-year-old activist and Jesuit priest. They seized his mobile phone and asked him to pack a bag. They then drove him to the airport and boarded a flight to Mumbai, where Father Swamy was remanded to judicial custody until 23 October.
He is now the oldest person to be accused of terrorism in India.
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By Friends of Sudha Bharadwaj
Sudha Bharadwaj is a trade-unionist, activist and lawyer who has lived and worked in Chhattisgarh for over three decades. On the 28 th of August 2018, along with other lawyers, writers and activists, Sudha was arrested under wrongful charges in the Bhima Koregaon case and put in jail under the draconian UAPA law. Part of the vibrant labour movement that began in the iron ore mines of Dalli Rajhara as a young activist, Sudha was urged by workers to study law and fight for them in the courtroom.
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The Polis Project & maraa
Fr. Stan Swamy is an indigenous people’s rights defender. He is the founder of Vistapan Virodhi Janvikash Andolan (VVJA), an all India platform for different movements that are campaigning against human rights violations caused by the displacement of Adivasis, Dalits, and farmers from their lands.
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The Indian Express / by Abhishek Angad
Swamy’s arrest has led to widespread protests in Jharkhand, where he has been based for over two decades. Various civil society groups and activists have criticised this arrest.
Two days before his arrest, Father Stan Swamy, 83, a Jharkhand-based Jesuit priest, human rights activist and writer who was arrested by NIA on Thursday in the Bhima Koregaon case, had in a video statement spoken about his work on displacement, land alienation, rights of gram sabhas and of Adivasis in jail, among other issues.
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The Wire / by Mari Marcel Thekaekara
Stan Swamy and the adivasis he supports in an impossible battle for their own ancestral lands are pawns pitted against mammoth mining companies. Falsely branding activists as Maoists is the easiest way to condemn to enable vested interests to finish them off.
“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 – for the second time. His crime? He defended the rights of adivasis being exploited in their homeland Jharkhand.
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08/10/2020
The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha
Swamy has been questioned in the case on multiple occasions.
Mumbai: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has taken 83-year-old Jharkhand-based tribal rights activist and Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy into custody. Swamy, who has been questioned at multiple occasions, is the 16th person taken into custody since June 2018 in connection with the ongoing investigation in the Elgar Parishad case. Swamy, who is suffering from multiple ailments, is the oldest person to be arrested in the case so far.
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en | 7:48 min | Oct 6, 2020
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The Wire / Sukanya Shantha
Mumbai: A fortnight ago, tribal rights champion Soni Sori found herself in quite a conundrum…
While the Jagdalpur team of the NIA refused to take Sori’s health condition seriously, its Bombay team, investigating the 2018 Elgar Parishad’s case, cancelled its scheduled questioning last week. Sori, who was one of the many guest speakers at the Elgar Parishad event… was to be questioned by the NIA. A team of officers had reportedly traveled to Dantewada but decided to return on finding out about her health condition. The team spoke to Sori on the phone instead and has rescheduled a visit to Dantewada to the coming week.
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06/07/2021
TwoCircles.net / by Sami Ahmad
Stanislaus Lourduswamy, popularly known as Stan Swamy, was an Indian Roman Catholic priest, a member of the Jesuit order, and a tribal rights activist for several decades. Arrested in the Elgaar Parishad case in 2020, Father Stan Swamy breathed his last in a Mumbai hospital. Doctors at Holy Family Hospital, Bandra, informed the Bombay High Court (on 5th of July) that Swamy passed away around 1.30 p.m. In this obituary, Father Stan is remembered by those who knew and worked with him for decades.
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Edition: Aug 2021
Publisher: Indian Social Institute, Bangalore
Language: English
Paperback: 149 pages
Access a free PDF copy of the book here
On the morning of August 28, 2018 Maharashtra police raided the one room home of Fr.Stan Swamy, who lives on the outskirts of Ranchi on Bagaicha campus, under suspicion of him being involved in the violence at Bhima Koregaon. The police confiscated his laptop, mobile phone and several CDs, and a recent press release on the Pathalgadi movement by Women against Sexual violence and State repression (WSS).
What does an 82 year old Jesuit priest has got to do with Bhima-Koregaon case? Everything, if he is a stalwart of people’s causes.
“When I decided to join the Jesuits, I sought to know where I will be needed more. I came to know about the Indigenous Adivasi people in central India and I lived in an interior Adivasi village for two years and came to appreciate their values … sense of equality, cooperation, sharing without counting, community-bond, consensus decision making, closeness to nature etc. At the same time, I saw how these beautiful people were being exploited and oppressed by unscrupulous outsiders. I wanted to make something of my life that would make even a small difference in their search for dignity and self-respect. That’s what I am still trying to do during the last four decades.“ (Stan Swamy)
This life defining decision has put Stan Swamy in the forefront of struggles that ranged from the right to food to anti-displacement movements to protests against false imprisonments to land alienation.
Stan Swamy, who moved to the Chaibasa area of undivided Bihar in the 1970s, embarked on life of activism by associating with the 1996 campaign led by the Jharkhand Organisation Against Uranium Radiation (JOAR), a campaign against Uranium Corporation India Limited that successfully stopped the construction of a tailing dam in Chaibasa which, if constructed, would lead to the displacement of adivasis in Jadugoda’s Chatikocha area. After vociferously raising these issues, he moved to work with the displaced people of Bukaro, Santhal Parganas and Koderma and has continued to work for them. He has been a vocal critic of the government’s attempts to amend land laws and the land acquisition act in Jharkhand, termed as ‘Land Bank’, which he sees as the most recent plot to annihilate the Adivasi people and a strong advocate of the Forest Rights Act, Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA), Tribes Advisory Council (TAC), Samatha Judgement etc.
In 2010 Stan Swamy published a book titled, ‘Jail Mein Band Qaidiyon ka Sach’ exposing the arbitrary and unlawful arrests of tribal youths with alleged links to the Naxal Movement. In his book, he highlighted that the average monthly income of 97 percent of these tribal households was less than Rs 5,000, which meant they simply could not afford to hire lawyers to take up their cases. In 2015 when a report was published discussing the plight of the arrested youths, Stan Swamy came into the State machinery’s radar. According to the report 98% of the 3000 arrested were falsely implicated and had no links to the Naxal Movement. Some served years in jail without a trial. He has selfless contributed to pay for the youth’s bail bonds and approached lawyers to represent these cases in the court of law. As part of the Persecuted Prisoners Solidarity Committee, Stan Swamy along with Sudha Bhardwaj, has questioned the illegality with which some undertrials have been put in solitary confinement following the banning of Mazdoor Sangathan Samiti in December 2017.
Working tirelessly to have the PESA Act implement in the state’s scheduled areas, his efforts culminated in the Pathalgadi movement in 2017 in the districts of Khunti, Simdega, Seraikela and Gumla in Jharkhand. The government’s response was to try and suppress the movement by booking around 20 leaders, including Father Swamy, under charges of sedition on 30 July 2018. It led to well-known intellectuals and activists like Vasvi Kido and Santosh Kido describing the government action as a witch hunt and an attempt to malign the image of the Church in Jharkand. It is hardly a secret that Chief Minister Raghubar Das and the BJP are keen to check the Church’s influence among the tribal community.
As testimony to his tireless endeavours to retain the secular fabric of the country, Stan Swamy has also been closely engaged in fostering communal harmony through secular platforms like Sajha Kadam.
He founded of Vistapan Virodhi Janvikash Andolan (VVJA), an all India platform for different movements that are campaigning against human rights violations caused by displacement of adivasi people, dalits, and farmers from their lands.
As a writer and with meticulous documentation skills he laid threadbare several of the government’s anti-people policies.
By Jhakhand Janadhikar Mahasabha
Stan Swamy wrote at least 74 articles, notes and books in the last two decades on several questions including land rights, undertrials, Adivasi rights, fifth schedule and PESA, hunger and development model. Always vocal on peoples’ issues.
See list of Articles, notes and books written by Stand Swamy (1999-2020)
hindi | 4:29min | 2020
By #InBetweenNews
Sudha Bharadwaj was arrested by the Pune Police on suspicion of being involved in Maoist terror activities in August 2018, along with five other accused across the country.
An alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Bharadwaj has been living in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh for the last 29 years and has worked as trade unionist and civil rights activist for most of her life.
Having been exposed to horrific working conditions of labourers during her time as a student at IIT, she moved to work with the late Shankar Guha Niyogi’s Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha in 1986.
She fought passionately against corrupt bureaucrats to ensure proper wages were paid to the workers in the mines and plants located in Bhilai. She also engaged in issues of Dalit and Adivasi rights, specifically the right to land, the right to education, health and for security against corrupt landlords.
Here is #InBetweenNews ‘s special report on Sudha Bharadwaj’s overtly political arrest and her life as an activist.
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