Skip to main content

To recall Pastor Niermoller: Today it's Fr Stan. Tomorrow your neighbour. Day after...?

By Rev Valson Thampu* 

I don’t know if Fr Stan Swamy’s soul will rest in peace. Given his sincerity to the cause of Dalit and adivasi rights, it is unlikely that it would, so long as the present situation continues. One thing, however, is certain. The present dispensation can now rest in peace. An octogenarian, enfeebled by Parkinson’s disease, unable even to hold a spoon with steady hands, will not destabilize the mighty Indian State anymore. Mera Bharat Mahan!
Why don’t I mourn Fr Stan’s death, though it is ‘untimely’? His death is ‘untimely’ because senseless imprisonment expedited it. If so, the plain truth is that he is killed. But, if you ask me, ‘Who killed Fr. Stan?’ I will have to refer to Count Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy says that the State is able to perpetrate atrocities through a division of labour.
Now if a judge, for example, had to not only condemn but also to take Fr. Stan personally to a prison and shut him up there, he would not be able to do it. If the NIA lawyers were to do it, their conscience too would revolt against it. Even the policemen involved, if they were to, on their own responsibility, throw Fr Stan into the jail, they would have trembled at the abhorrence of it.
But break this atrocity into many pieces and make different agencies carry out the fragments by way of discharging their ‘duties’, it can then be done with sincerity and national fervour. I too am part of this callous system. So, how can I mourn the death of this saintly man, having kept quiet about it for nearly a year?
Secondly, I feel happy for him because Fr Stan is now in a better state than he was, while alive in circumstances such were inflicted on him for reasons he could not understand. There is a school of thought that it is easier for an innocent man to suffer. They think so because they have never suffered, innocently or otherwise.
The anguish in guilt-less suffering is that one’s suffering makes no sense. It is absurd. What is absurd is unendurable. If you are punished for your wrongdoings, then you can reconcile yourself to your plight. Think, if you dare, of the plight of an old and chronically ill man in a prison.
Prison-life conditions, including the psychological poison that goes with it, being what they are, even individuals much younger than Fr Stan and in better states of health disintegrate fast. Fr. Stan himself said that it is better to die than to be in prison the way he was. So, why shouldn’t we celebrate his release from misery through the mercy of death, for neither mercy nor justice was likely to reach him in any other way?
Oh, no! It is not Fr Stan that we need to mourn. It is ourselves. Given the miasma of fear that is enveloping the country –of which the plight of Fr Stan is a clear warning- the difference between being inside the jail and being outside of it is becoming merely notional. A story from Hitler’s Germany is relevant here. Pastor Martin Niemoller was visited in jail by some of his sympathisers who wondered why he had to be in jail. He quipped, ‘Why are you not in jail?’ That is to say, at what cost are you keeping yourself out of it?
What intrigues me most is not the efficiency and zealous patriotism of NIA that rids India of extreme threats like Fr. Stan, but the crass indifference of the Catholic Church. No one is in the dark about the communication lines between the church hierarchy and the Modi dispensation.
We are also aware of the extent to which the Church goes, covertly, if not overtly, to save worthies like Franko of the nun-rape fame. We have seen, over three decades, bow the accused in the Abhya nun murder case were sheltered from the arm of the law. The humongous financial investment made for their sake is also not unknown.
The one thing we do not know is if anything comparable has ever been attempted by the same Church arms or agencies for the sake of Fr Stan. He was abandoned, it seems, like an illicit baby by its unwed mother.
A couple of issues stare at us from the Fr Stan tragedy, which is the tragedy of humanity as a whole. First, Fr Stan has died condemned, without the due process of law. Under the UAPA, the accused is guilty until proven innocent. Fr Stan was not proved innocent. He was ‘the accused’ at the time of his death.
Valson Thampu
The accused is, under the UAPA, guilty. So, I suggest that his case be tried on an urgent basis and the truth or otherwise of the allegations against him established. This is a matter of larger significance. It is likely that many more will suffer Fr Stan’s plight, given the increasing number of people booked under the UAPA and the inordinate in trying them as well as the protracted nature of their trials.
There is, besides, a humanitarian issue involved here. The state tends to mistake the cry of the poor for justice as a war-cry against peace and stability. Since Fr Stan was booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, we cannot but ask: Is it ‘unlawful’ to empathise with those who struggle for their rights: both human and constitutional?
The Pathalgadi movement, with which Fr Stan was in solidarity, is a tribal movement to realize the tribal rights enshrined in the Constitution of India. From Fr. Stan’s point of view, it is a spiritual and humanitarian duty to stand with those who struggle and suffer for justice. In itself it is a humane and laudable thing.
But, under the law, it has become subversive and anti-national. It has become, that is to say, dangerous to do good, if the good you do seems to go against the interests of the ruling elite. But, the right and duty of human beings to express their conscience through humanitarian activities is not subject to the charity of a State; it is a God-given duty. It is reprehensible for the State to trespass into this domain of practical spirituality.
Let’s not forget that Fr Stan is the victim not only of callous state action but also of the even more reprehensible indifference of the people at large. Today what is done to fellow human beings doesn’t matter to us, so long as it has either the tang of ideology or the veneer of legality. So long as our own skin remains intact, we sail along without any pang of conscience. Let me, yet again, borrow the words of Pastor Niermoller: today it is Fr Stan. Tomorrow it will be your neighbour. The day after...?
---
*Former principal, St Stephen’s College. Distributed by AC Michael, former member, Delhi Minorities Commission, through People's Media Advocacy & Resource Centre

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Central pollution watchdog sees red in Union ministry labelling waste to energy green

By Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran*  “Destructors”, “incinerators” and “waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration” all mean the same thing – indiscriminate burning of garbage! Having a history of about one and a half centuries, WTE incinerators have seen several reboots over the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. 

First-of-its-kind? 'Eco-friendly, low cost' sewage treatment system installed in Gujarat

Counterview Desk Following the installation of the Unconventional Decentralized Multi-Stage Reactor (UDMSR) for sewage treatment, a note on what is claimed to be the  first-of-its-kind technology said, the treated sewage from this system “can be directly utilized for agricultural purposes”, even as proving to be a “saviour in the times of water crisis.”

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Indo-Bangla border: Farmers facing 'illegal obstacles' in harvesting, transporting yields

  Counterview Desk  In a representation to the chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, human rights defender Kirity Roy, who is secretary, Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), has said that Border Security Force (BSF) personnel are creating "illegal obstacles" for farmers seeking to harvest their ripened yields and transport them to the market in village Jhaukuthi of Cooch Behar district.

Wasteland, a colonial legacy, being used to 'give away' vast tracts to Ratnagiri refinery

By Fouziya Tehzeeb* William D’Souza, a 55-year old farmer from Kuthethur, Mangalore, was busy mixing cattle feed when we arrived at his doorsteps. Around 25 km from the bustling city of Mangalore, Kuthethur is a lush green village with thick vegetation. On the way to William’s house the idyllic view gets blocked by the flares and smoke arising from the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL).

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

CAA disregards India's inclusive plural ethos, 'betrays' ideals of freedom struggle: PUCL

Counterview Desk    "Outraged" at the move of the Central government to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA 2019) weeks before the election, the top rights group, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has demanded that the law be repealed. 

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Sections of BSF, BGB personnel 'directly or indirectly' involved in cross border smuggling

By Kirity Roy*  The Border Security Force (BSF) of India and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) of Bangladesh met for 54th Director General level meeting at Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 5th to 9th March, 2024 to discuss on minimizing killings at border area, illegal intrusion, trafficking of drugs and other narcotics, smuggling of arms and ammunitions and other crimes at bordering areas. Further, the summit had an agenda to discuss on overall development in 150 yards area at both sides of the border and design an activity plan for the same.