George Pattery,S.J.

Dear Stan,

Participating in the on-line your funeral service from Mumbai (Bandra), on 6th July (2020), I said to myself: Stan must be jerking in his coffin, not to see his dear Adivasi people around, dancing to the tunes of the drums beating to mourn/celebrate his death. None of it happened. Our national laws are perfect, you know by now! The service had to be conducted in this way, within certain time, body to cremated soon after, under judicial supervision, and the whole matter to be reported to the Court: it doesn’t matter if our Laws took one full month to reach a straw to your cell while you were at Taloja jail in the financial capital of Atmanirbhar Bharat!

Through your death,

You are unmasking us/India, our Motherland, from its pretentious claims of being world’s biggest de-mo-cracy;

You are unmasking the cruelty of our inherited colonial criminal justice system, that keeps hundreds of undertrials without bail for years, most of whom are Adivasis and Dalits, and you became its victim;

You are unmasking our religious leadership that values religious rules and liturgies as non-negotiable absolutes, while ignoring huge violations of fundamental human rights of the poor and the marginalized all around;

You are unmasking the exploitative mechanism of the Corporates and their innocent looking accomplices as you struggled with the Adivasis for Pathal gadi movement;

You are unmasking the violence hidden in our so called developed consumerist life-style, as we ignore the community life style and decision making of adivasis.

On 9th Feb 2021, I wrote to you, to Taloja jail saying “… that we had been protesting against your and other activists’ arrest, in various ways both at the national and international levels, and thanked you for your humble and courageous witness in and from the prison-cell; your narratives on the plight of the prisoners living with the barest minimum and yet supporting one another, are really marvelous and inspiring; the pathetic stories of the numerous undertrials languishing in Indian prisons, without trial or bail for years, are an indictment of unjust legal system that is forthright in granting bail for a populist media person within hours of appeal. You are a vibrant witness to the spirit of the Constitutions of our great nation, notwithstanding the present dispensation of the Govt who were the on-lookers of India’s ‘freedom struggles’. No wonder then that they know only to imprison human rights activists. Unwittingly the present dispensation is doing us a favour by internationalizing our engagements with the excluded, by your arrest.

Dear Stan, we are with you. You live the Jesuit spirit of ‘Take and Receive Lord all that I have … give me only your Grace, that is enough for me.’ Thank you for being who you are, and paradoxically for where you are! You are in the company of the heroes ‘who do not count the cost’ but live-in eternity! With you we continue our struggle for justice that cares for the poor and the excluded! Not a day pass by, without praying for you and companions in the prisons.”

Now that you are no more with us, what else do I want to add now, except the words of Chitrangada Choudhury (The Hindu, 9 July 2021). “As now well known, a dying man’s final wish to return to Jharkhand, to the people he loved and with whose struggles he had become one for over five decades, went unheard. These struggles will keep Father Stan Swamy’s quest for a more democratic India alive.”

Dear Stan, Arundathi Roy summarizes well for us, the sentiments of rage, sadness and frustration of the national and inter-national community, at this dark hour: “The excruciating, slow-motion, custodial murder of 84-year-old Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest who spent decades of his life in the service of India’s dispossessed, took place in the show window of our democracy. Our judiciary, police, intelligence services, and prison system are responsible. Our mainstream media too. All of them were aware of the case, and of his failing health. And yet he continued to be ground down.”

Indeed, you became ‘’a fool for Christ’’, as you desired and begged for that grace in your long retreat during Jesuit formation. You lived ‘a faith that does justice’; as Father Pedro Arrupe taught us, we pray: “Give me Lord what you gave to the prophets. Even if my craven soul protests, force me to speak.”