Mumbai: St Xavier’s College cancels Stan Swamy lecture after ABVP protests

St Xavier’s College in Mumbai has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, which was to be held on Saturday, after protests by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, reported The Free Press Journal.

The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The lecture, titled “Migration for Livelihood: Hope amidst Miseries”, was to be delivered virtually by Father Prem Xalxo, professor of Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome.

On Tuesday, the ABVP unit in Mumbai stated a group of its workers had met with the principal of St Xavier’s College and submitted a letter demanding the “immediate cancellation” of the lecture.

“ABVP firmly believes that organising a lecture in memory of a person accused in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case, facing UAPA charges for links with banned Maoist groups, is an attempt to glorify urban Naxalism on campus,” said the Hindutva group. It also urged the authorities in Maharashtra to take “strict action” against such events being held under the “guise of academic freedom”.

Swamy was among a group of 16 lawyers and activists who had been accused of instigating caste violence between Maratha and Dalit groups in the Bhima Koregaon case in 2018 and was charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. He died on July 5, 2021, nearly nine months after he was arrested.

The 84-year-old had suffered from several ailments, including Parkinson’s disease and had contracted the coronavirus infection at the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai. In December 2022, a report by a United States-based digital forensics firm said that a hacker planted evidence on a device owned by Swamy. Frazer Mascarenhas, a former principal of St Xavier’s College, said the cancellation of the lecture was “saddening”.

“The ABVP accusations against Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy are totally unfounded because the Pune Police and then the NIA have so far only made allegations against him and have been unable to prove them in a court for more than five years,” said Mascarenhas.

He added: “In fact, the case has not yet begun and may be delayed eternally for fear of being thrown out as fabricated.” Noting that the constitutional provisions do not function under the “rule of the mob”, the former principal said that Swamy’s contributions towards the cause of Adivasi empowerment should be written about widely.

“We quite understand that it will be difficult for the ABVP activists to appreciate such finer points of reasoning but it is regrettable that this has led to the cancellation of a meaningful memorial lecture,” said Mascarenhas. “One can gauge the state of democracy our country has degenerated to.”

Of the 16 persons who have been arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, nine have secured bail over the last seven years, namely Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Anand Teltumbde, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Varavara Rao, Shoma Sen, Rona Wilson and Sudhir Dhawale.