Opposition parties demand release of Jesuit priest, activists

By Irudaya Jothi

Konchowki: Opposition leaders October 21 expressed solidarity human rights activists such as Jesuit Father Stan Swamy and lawyers arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and demanded the repeal of the stringent law.

Addressing a webinar organized by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), they urged the public to break their silence on the government’s efforts to “chip away the rights of the people.”

The National Investigation Agency arrested Father Swamy, 83, and others in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case.

Father Swamy was arrested October 8 from his residence near Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand state in eastern India. Next day, it took the priest, a patient of Parkinson’s disease, to Mumbai, some 1,710 km west of Ranchi, and presented him before a court that sent him to judicial custody until October 23.

Activists and political leaders have condemned the priest’s arrest and keeping him in a crowded jail during the pandemic, with least concern for his age and illnesses.

Addressing the webinar, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren alleged that the federal government was trying to silence the voices of marginalized communities. He also alleged that the country’s unity, integrity and democratic structures were under attack under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

The NDA government tries to silence those speaking for the Adivasis, Dalits and other marginalized groups, harass the non-BJP ruled states, and weaken the various constitutional mechanisms of the country using different groups and organizations for “its political benefit under a hidden agenda,” Soren alleged.

“It is forcing us to ponder about where the country is headed. It crossed all limits today when someone like Stan Swamy was arrested. He is someone who has been working in Jharkhand for years, in the remote faraway villages, wandering in the jungles, just so that the Adivasis, Dalits and minority populations here could be reached. This is extremely disappointing. Stan Swamy is also suffering from many diseases,” Soren said.

The opposition of all kinds should have no trouble coming together, in these times, to counter the federal government’s clearly targeted and anti-people stance. “The way Stan Swamy has been arrested today, it could happen to any of us tomorrow – or it could even escalate further to people being killed,” Soren said.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury as well as the DMK’s Kanimozhi urged civil society groups and the public to break their silence over the “government’s attacks on the rights of the people.”

“Today we have to make a decision as political parties, as the whole society whether to accept what is happening in silence or say this is enough and fight them together. If we accept this, then in a few years we will not see a democratic India that we know. Every law that this government has passed has chipped away the rights of the people. It’s time to break the silence,” Kanimozhi said at the webinar.

Yechury said entire UAPA law needs to be repealed, as it is prone “gross misuse.” He said that UAPA, sedition law and National Security Act need to be seen together as part of the “larger plan of the BJP and RSS” to pave the way for a “fascistic, intolerant and authoritarian Hindutva nation.” The Centre, he alleged, is using central agencies to undermine the Constitution, while shielding the real perpetrators of violence.

A total of 16 people have been arrested under the UAPA in the case, which include three cultural activists of the Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) – Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Ghogre and Jyoti Jagtap – as well as rights activists, writers, lawyers, and academics Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, Shoma Sen, Hany Baby, lawyers, Sudha Bharadwaj, Surendra Gadling, Vernon Gonsalves, Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson and Arun Ferreira.

Yechury alleged the UAPA has been grossly misused and wants the law removed from the country’s statute book. “However, this is not the issue of just one law. All these draconian laws are being used to silence all dissent against the government,” he added.

According him, the arrests linked to the Bhima-Koregaon case are not isolated cases, but part of “an agenda to establish a rabidly theocratic Hindutva Rashtriya which was their plan from the beginning. This cannot be accepted. We must break this silence. For evil to succeed, the good only requires to be silent. People need to restore the secular democracy,”

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said Swamy deserves “respect and support,” not jail term. Tharoor said he was convinced that “no Jesuit will indulge in any violence or entice anyone towards violence.” “This must stop. I appeal to the government to be fair and at least grant him bail we stand in solidarity with Stan Swamy,” he said.

D. Raja of the Communist Party of India reminded people of the Bhima Koregaon violence on January 1, 2018, and how thousands of Dalits were not only attacked but also booked under false cases. “The central government is ruthless government and does not believe in the Constitution and democracy, and is opposed to B.R. Ambedkar’s vision and values,” he said.

An activist from the Kabir Kala Manch, a cultural organization, also spoke at the event. Three KKM members are currently in jail in the case, and the NIA has claimed that the group is affiliated to the banned Maoist organizations.

The KKM, Rupali Jadhav said, has always raised its voice against anti-people policies. She said that her colleagues who have been arrested were being coerced by the NIA to give false evidence under the threat of arrest. They were being asked to implicate others who had already been arrested. They refused to do so, and chose to face arrest, Jadhav said.

The webinar started with Mihir Desai, an advocate of the Bombay High Court, briefing the participants about the Bhima Koregaon case and its present status.

Jesuit Father Marianus Kujur, the director of Ranchi’s Xavier Institute of Social Science, said Father Swamy’s arrest was “unfortunate, barbarian and unconstitutional.”

He hailed his jailed confrere as a symbol of tribal assertion.”He is tribal by choice. He is man of all castes, ethnicity and religions,” he added.

Father Kujur also said the arrest of Father Stan has generated a positive energy and hope to create a new India.

Dayamani Barla, an activist from Jharkhand, said the Jesuit priest had tried to stop the loot of Jal, Jamin, Jangal (water, land and forest) by the corporate houses.

Jean Drez, a collaborator of Father Swamy in Jharkhand, wants to build a larger platform to force the repeal of UAPA. He sees the current unrest over the Jesuit’s arrest as an opportunity to win back democracy from the privileged few in the country.

Auxiliary Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas of Ranchi termed the priest’s arrest as “a blot on the Indian democracy.”

At the end PUCL came up with three demands to the federal government: Immediate release Father Swamy and Varavara Rao and 95 percent disabled Professor Saibaba kept in Anda cell in Nagpur Central Prison, on humanitarian grounds to enable them to take appropriate treatment and care in a facility of his choice.

Another demand is to drop charges against all the 16 accused in the Bhima-Koreganon case, set them free and close the conspiracy case. It also wants the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, repealed.