St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture scheduled for August 9, following protests from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student organization affiliated with the RSS. The lecture, titled “Migration for Livelihood: Hope amidst Miseries,” was to be delivered virtually by Father Prem Xalxo and organized by the college’s department of Inter-Religious Studies. It aimed to honour the legacy of the Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist who died in judicial custody in July 2021.
In a letter to the college principal, ABVP Mumbai secretary Prashant Mali objected to the event, alleging that Father Swamy was a prime accused in the Bhima Koregaon case and had links to the banned CPI (Maoist). He was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), an anti-terror law, and remained incarcerated despite suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other age-related ailments. He died at Holy Family Hospital after a cardiac arrest.
Father Stan Swamy belonged to the Jamshedpur Jesuit Province and had spent decades working alongside Adivasi communities in Jharkhand, advocating for their rights to land, forest, and livelihood. His death sparked nationwide calls for prison reform and drew attention to the treatment of elderly under-trial prisoners. This is not the first time events commemorating Father Swamy have faced opposition. In Mangaluru, another Jesuit run institution, withdrew plans to name a park after him following similar protests on October 7, 2021. The park was to be called the Father Stan Swamy Peace Park, located at the St Aloysius Institute of Management and IT in Kotekar, on the outskirts of Mangaluru.
