By Matters India Reporter
Jalpaiguri, March 15, 2020: Human rights activists across India have mourned the death of Abhay Flavian Xaxa, an Adivasi sociologist who died of heart attack on March 14 in West Bengal. He was 47.
“We lost one of the tribal jewels in India,” says Divine Word Father Nicholas Barla, secretary of the Office of the Tribal Affairs under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India who had accompanied Xaxa in his speaking engagements in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, where he died suddenly.
Father Barla, in his message to activist friends, said Xaxa conducted a workshop at 4:30 pm on March 14 at Matigarha in Jalpaiguri. Then he went to visit tea garden with Bishop Vincent Aind of Bagdogra and Sister Lalita Lakra.
Father Barla said he received a call from Sister Lakra around 5:40 pm that Xaxa was not well. Bishop Aind and others rushed him to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival. “It was just 5 to 10 minutes and we could not save his life,” the priest says in his message.
Father Barla also said they would take Xaxa’s body after autopsy to his native village in Jashpur, Chhattisgarh.
The last right would be on Monday March 16, he added.
Xaxa, who had a doctorate from Delhi’s famous Jawaharlal Nehru University, was known for his advocacy on policies towards tribals, or Adivasis, and his work as the co-convener of the Tribal Intellectual Collective and the National Coalition for Adivasi Justice.
Both bodies coordinate various networks of Adivasi organizations across India to analyze policy challenges in areas with Adivasi populations, lobby for Adivasi rights and dialogue with governments and political parties.
Xaxa’s sudden death has sent shock waves in the activist world.
Shabnam Hashmi, an activist from Delhi, says Xaxa’s death has benumbed her.
“You [Xaxa] will surely disturb our sleep as much as your thoughts and provocation disturbed our days! So many years of camaraderie cannot come to an end, dear! No, not like this… tributes to the brilliant mind, the enthusiastic worker and the intimidating activist you were,” Hashmi said in her condolence message.
She said for consolation she picked up Xaxa’s poem that helps her remember the young activist and celebrate his life. “Rarely do we have the privilege of mourning any of ours who go ahead in that long walk to eternal peace, justice and dignity! We have taken that Adivasi tradition of celebrating… I have not seen you in a long time! Now I do not know when I will, ever!”
Another mourner was Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash from Gujarat who said Xaxa’s “untimely death” has shocked him. “His death leaves a great void in the struggle of the Adivasis for a more just and equitable society,” he added.
“In a short life, he contributed so much for the cause of the Adivasis, through his intellectual depth and committed activism,” he added,
Gladson Dungdung, one of Xaxa’s fellow activists for tribal issues and rights from the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, told Matters India that he felt “lot of sadness” to realize “our beloved colleague Xaxa is no more.”
Rajesh Bagh, a college lecturer from Odisha, described Xaxa as “organic intellectual” whose death is “sad news for the future generations of powerless folks in India.”
“Xaxa’s ideas, thoughts and perspectives are meaningful and constructive for a democratic community and society. As a young scholar and activist he always stood with the common people. His writings and Facebook posts were illuminating. Whenever I used to see his Facebook posts and writings, I used to puzzle,” the lecturer of political science said.
According to Bagh, Xaxa stood like a mountain for the community’s right on water, forest, land, livelihood, language and culture. He was a fearless and firebrand activist and scholar.
Another friend of Xaxa, Chitrangada Choudhury said, “We spoke often about the cruelties inflicted on Adivasis in modern India.”
He said they had made a forest rights advocacy video. And Xaxa had wanted to make more. “This country needs many more (Xaxas),” said Choudhury, an independent journalist and researcher.
A poem written by Xaxa:
I refuse, I reject and I resist
I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,
I am not your project, or any exotic museum object,
I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,
Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,
I am not your cannon fodder, or the invisible worker,
or your entertainment at India habitat center,
I am not your field, your crowd, your history,
your help, your guilt, medallions of your victory,
I refuse, reject, resist your labels,
your judgments, documents, definitions,
your models, leaders and patrons,
because they deny me my existence, my vision, my space,
your words, maps, figures, indicators,
they all create illusions and put you on pedestal,
from where you look down upon me,
So I draw my own picture, and invent my own grammar,
I make my own tools to fight my own battle,
For me, my people, my world, and my Adivasi self!
By Abhay Flavian Xaxa