By Stan Swamy

Dumka, Feb 20, 2020: The second half of 2019 (July – December) was both a very trying but sobering experience for me. The Jharkhand police were after me and I was after the police.

The difference was the police acted illegally and I acted legally. Issue of ‘arrest warrant’ (June), declaration of me an ‘absconder’ (August), raid of my workplace cum residence and confiscation of my personal belongings (October) by the order of the lower court and the action of the police were declared illegal by Jharkhand High Court (December).

What did I do during the six-month sojourn? I was in the three southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. There in the towns and cities, one cannot avoid seeing young men from the north walking, working, and living in makeshift tents. Hardly do they interact with the local population nor do the locals take the trouble to talk with them. Kind of touch-me-not atmosphere.

I met with several socially concerned persons/groups/organizations/movements. Migrant labor from the north to the southern states is stupefying. Over 3.6 million in Kerala, 1 million in Tamil Nadu, counting is in process in Karnataka. These mostly young people hail from the tribal belt of central India, North-East, and Bihar.

They are going in waves hoping to get some employment, thereby earn something for their families, which they are unable to do in their home states. But their working and living conditions are appalling. They are mostly doing the hardest work: laying roads, construction of buildings, flyovers, metro lines. The majority of them are in the grip of unscrupulous labor-contractors who fleece them of their meager earnings. Except Kerala, the other state governments close their eyes to the exploitation and demeaning of these migrant laborers.

I pleaded with my friends not to ignore their presence in their midst and simply pass them by but to meet them in their work/living places, find out whether they are getting government prescribed minimum wage, physical security and help them to approach the respective government offices to rectify when things go amiss. In short, I tried to persuade these friends to show a human face to them.

What happened within me? Initially, it was like walking into a thick dark cloud. Where all would I go…who all would I meet…would they take me in…and if they do, what repercussions it could have on them…for how long would I have to be on the run.

Another important concern was the cases my Jesuit colleagues and lawyers were handling back home both in the lower as well as in the high court… who will argue the cases…how long will the hearings go on…the needed finance toward court expenses/lawyers’ fees… and at the end of it all, will I and my co-accused colleagues get justice.

An enduring pain within me has been whereas I have been privileged to have so many contacts where I could go, be protected and take on the state government in court and get legal protection, whereas so many innocent persons who have been unjustly imprisoned and are still languishing in jails. There is no one even to bail them out.

And when I think of Bhima-Koregaon case, in which also I am implicated as a “suspected accused,” so many eminent intellectuals, lawyers, poets, human rights defenders are still behind bars. They are some of the best human beings I have come across in my life. They have given the most and best of their life for the cause of the poor and marginalized.

More than a year has passed and they cannot even get bail. My heart aches for them. The only way I can find some justification is that I redouble my efforts to bring relief to the thousands of under-trial prisoners in Jharkhand on whose behalf I have filed a Public Interest Litigation in Jharkhand High Court, Ranchi.

Knocking at doors:

Renewing the contacts I already had with individual activists in people’s organizations/movements, I took the liberty of knocking at their doors. They not only took me in but also went out of their way to contact other socially concerned persons/groups/organizations. We met and shared what is happening locally, in their states, in the country as a whole. They were eager to understand what compels the migrant labor to leave their hearth and home and come to the south where everything is alien to them. They also assured me they would take up their cause to the extent possible.

The Jesuit communities whose doors I knocked accepted me not as a visitor or a guest but as a member of their communities. They shared all they have and were keen to know the developments about the cases I am facing and the situation of the indigenous peoples of central India. All the Jesuits I met expressed their solidarity with me and what I was going through.

The happy news from Jharkhand end of December, the defeat of communal party paving way for secular democratic forces, meant a lot to me and my co-accused colleagues. The very first decision of the cabinet, within a few hours of the swearing-in ceremony, to withdraw all cases related to the Pathalgadi movement has brought a big relief to all of us. The whole nation stands in the adulation of what the Adivasi/Moolvasi people of Jharkhand have been able to achieve to restore values of secularism and democracy. The Indigenous Adivasis, in their inimitable quiet way, will show the way to the rest of the country is my belief.

‘Truth will finally win’, yes, but after how long? Back home in Jharkhand, my Jesuit colleagues and lawyers kept me updated about the proceedings in both the district and high courts. I was, and am, deeply pained about the type of accusations against me formally placed in open court by the Advocate General of the state. That I am a ‘dreaded criminal’… that I was the ‘mastermind’ behind the Pathalgadi movement provoking the “poor ignorant adivasis” (sic) to violent action against the State with the intent of seceding from the Indian Union and therefore an act of ‘sedition’. He tried to link the Pathalgadi movement with the Bhima-Koregaon case implying that both the revolts were done at the behest of Maoists. It is a small consolation that these accusations were aptly countered by my lawyers.

Light at the end of the tunnel! We are witnessing a new mass upsurge in the resistance movements all over the country against the imposition of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR). People of all ages, all religions, all races, and all regions are coming down on the street. They are speaking in very clear words that they will stand by our Constitution, secularism and democracy. The conscience of the nation is being tapped.

May we hope that this conscience-awakening will also spread to other spheres of life that those in power and position, the bureaucrats, the legal professionals, the intellectuals, will not lag in hearing the voice of their conscience. We live in hope.

(This is the copy of letter Jesuit Father Stan Swamy has sent to his friends.)