By P A Chacko
Sahibganj, July 4, 2023: July 5 is the second anniversary of Jesuit Father Stan Swami’s martyrdom.
Denying even a straw to drink water, when Stan was unable to hold a cup with his shivering hands in his jail cell, was the cruelty of a regime that can go to any extent to suppress truth and foist lies.
He was arrested on false charges by compromising with his lap top materials and interpolating false evidences to prove that he was in collusion with Maoists.
A regime that can stomach no dissent, not even democratic dissent, victimized Stan for taking up the cause of the poor Jharkhandi Adivasis who were jailed on false charges. He took a survey in Jharkhand jails and proved that most of them were innocent victims of suspicion that they were agents or collaborators of the Maoist groups combing the Jharkhand jungles.
The Maoists have the habit of walking into a tribal village and, at gun point, order poor families to provide them with food and alcohol. On their leaving, they announce that no one should ever divulge that they were around. Immediately thereafter, military police go after the villagers rather than the dreaded Maoists. They pick up all young people of the village as Maoist collaborators and let them rot behind the bars on cooked up charges.
It was Stan’s humanitarian effort to save the victims of the uncontrollable juggernaut of state terrorism.
He was convinced that they were like rabbits caught in headlights of the onrushing bulldozer regime and getting crushed. He stood up. He voiced his angst and anger in prophetic style. But used democratic means to highlight the crucial issues and sought for solution in the judicial corridors.
A government that pulverizes even democratic dissent and peaceful and nonviolent expressions did not think twice before labelling him as a rebel and a terrorist engaging in anti-national activities.
The end for Stan came as a prisoner of a terrorizing state and as a prisoner of conscience for truth, justice and freedom.
Can truth be buried for long? The piercing words Emile Zola (1840-1902), French writer and promoter of political liberalization, reassures those of us who are left behind: “If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”
Zola’s prophetic words have proved right as historical events show. Where are Hitler and Mussolini now? Where are the terrorist leaders of nations who built their towers of power and glory by trampling over the poor, by cruelly treating people whose voices were suppressed by an iron hand?
Men and women without conscience will have to stand one day before the court of their maker whether they believe in him or not.
Gandhiji has very aptly said: “There is a higher court than the court of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.”
Even the law courts can fail you whether you admit it or not. That is where men and women who preside over justice and those who govern their people in their wanton way will have to answer before that infallible court of conscience.
An alert and conscientious populace can facilitate that process to a great extent. And, those of us, who look the other way when our neighbor’s house is burning, will one day face the fire of fury. Silence can be a damning collaboration and collusion.
(Jesuit Father P A Chacko has been serving the tribal people of Jharkhand for more than half a century.)