Browsed by
Tag: adivasis

Stan Swamy’s Crime Is His Solidarity with the Marginalised

Stan Swamy’s Crime Is His Solidarity with the Marginalised

The Leaflet / by Annie Domini

In light of the state’s attack on eminent activists who fight for the right of marginalised and oppressed, those who express solidarity must raise their voices loudly and actively writes Annie Domini.
If you look at the body politic of the country without saffron-tinted glasses, if you truly see, you will find a very very sick organism indeed. An organism that’s cannibalising on its own heart, brain and lungs to feed a massive belly of unrestrained State power.
Read more

A citizen objects – On the arrests of men and women of conscience

A citizen objects – On the arrests of men and women of conscience

The Telegraph / by Shiv Visvanathan

My father was a brilliant metallurgist who worked for the Tatas. We lived in Jamshedpur and would go for long walks. He loved the forests around the city. I remember one evening as we walked, the Tata ‘mountains’ poured out their slag — molten and incandescent — as if the Tatas made sunsets. Then, a few minutes later, the Dalma hills lit up as the tribals burnt an area for jhum cultivation. Both were brilliant sights and my father watched entranced. He then said, almost cryptically, “Both have to survive. Justice is balance between the two.” For my father, Tata’s validity lay in the continuity of the tribe. It was a vision of a different world.
When I heard of the Jesuit Father, Stan Swamy, I sensed here was a man who understood that vision, grasped why the tribes and the tribal way of life had to survive.
Read more

Note on life and work of Fr. Stan Swamy & the case / His arrest is an insult to justice

Note on life and work of Fr. Stan Swamy & the case / His arrest is an insult to justice

Life and work of Fr. Stan Swamy and the Bhima Koregaon case

20/10/2020

Indian Cultural Forum / by Frazer Mascarenhas

Fr. Stan Swamy was arrested by the National Investigating Agency (NIA) on 8th October in Ranchi and he was sent to Taloja jail after being charged in a false and fabricated conspiracy case related to the Bhima Koregaon incident that took place on 1st January, 2018. Here is a brief note on the life and work of Fr. Stan Swamy and the Bhima Koregaon case.
Read more


India’s arrest of an 83-year-old priest on terrorism charges is an insult to justice

18/10/2020

The Guardian / by Mari Marcel Thekaekara

Father Stan Swamy, who was helping indigenous people fight mining corporates, is far from a violent Maoist.
A frail, ailing 83-year-old Jesuit priest, Father Stan Swamy, has become the oldest person to be accused of terrorism in India. He is incarcerated in a Mumbai jail after his arrest last week.
Read more

Father Stan Swamy’s arrest ripples in Northeast

Father Stan Swamy’s arrest ripples in Northeast

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.
Read more

Jailed activist Stan Swamy has spent half a century making Adivasi struggles his own

Jailed activist Stan Swamy has spent half a century making Adivasi struggles his own

Pic: National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations (NCHRO)

Jailed activist Stan Swamy has spent half a century making Adivasi struggles his own

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.
Read more


Stan Swamy: The oldest person to be accused of terrorism in India

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.
Read more

A new website launched by Friends of Sudha Bharadwaj

A new website launched by Friends of Sudha Bharadwaj

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.
Visit website

The battle to protect Adivasis’ right to the land: A profile of Father Stan Swamy

The battle to protect Adivasis’ right to the land: A profile of Father Stan Swamy


Pic: Ranchi Oct, 9

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.
Read more

Held by NIA 83-yr-old priest worked for tribals, took on govt policies, and `even the Church´

Held by NIA 83-yr-old priest worked for tribals, took on govt policies, and `even the Church´


Ranchi, Oct 2020

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.
Read more

The Indomitable Spirit of Father Stan Swamy

The Indomitable Spirit of Father Stan Swamy

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.
Read more

NIA Arrests Adivasi Rights Activist Stan Swamy in Elgar Parishad Case / Statements by Stan Swamy

NIA Arrests Adivasi Rights Activist Stan Swamy in Elgar Parishad Case / Statements by Stan Swamy

NIA Arrests 83-Year-Old Tribal Rights Activist Stan Swamy in Elgar Parishad Case

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.
Read more


Video: Testimony of Stan Swamy, 6 October 2020


en | 7:48 min | Oct 6, 2020
Watch video


Statement by Stan Swamy, Morning 8th of Oct