'How Father Stan Swamy’s “custodial murder” is sparking new demands for justice in India', 12 July 2021

Father Stan Swamy, India’s oldest person accused of terrorism, died in judicial custody on Monday 5 July. One week later many people across the country say that, in fact, a martyr of human rights was born: “Father Stan did not die, he was killed,” placards held by protesters have read from Mumbai to Kolkata...

Father Stan was the last of 16 intellectuals, human rights activists and artists to have been imprisoned in what has become known as India’s infamous Bhima Koregaon case. In 2018, communal violence, which left one person dead, erupted at an annual New Year’s Day celebration of Dalits, India’s previously untouchable low caste groups, in the village of Bhima Koregaon some 165 kilometres southeast of Mumbai. A group of around 30,000 people was attacked by a mob of higher caste men, after gathering to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of Dalit victory – as soldiers in the British Raj – over an upper caste regime that had enslaved them for centuries...

India had just liberalised its economy, welcomed foreign investment and trade, and national and multinational corporations of every hue, backed by public officials, were waiting to seize tribal lands. Although the indigenous people had been impoverished for centuries, India’s richest mineral reserves lay underneath their forests. Father Stan travelled to remote villages to show Adivasis the plans for the dams, mines and factories to be built on their land, warn them about how their forests and water would be taken away without their consent, and to educate them in how to fight for their constitutionally protected rights...

Father Stan knew his actions would likely lead to prison. And yet, the cruelty with which he was then treated, in what is often celebrated as the world’s largest democracy, needs to be marked. His lawyers had to go to court just to get him a sip cup to enable him to drink by himself, for his hands shook from Parkinson’s disease and he could not hold a glass to his lips. His health deteriorated significantly in prison so that he could not walk, hear or eat without support but repeated applications for his bail were rejected even after he contracted COVID-19. He died as the Bombay High Court was considering an appeal against the rejection of his bail appeal...