No charges were proved against Stan Swamy, it’s saddening that his memorial lecture has been cancelled, says an ex-principal of St. Xavier’s College.
Academics have expressed outrage after Mumbai’s St Xavier’s College cancelled the annual Stan Swamy memorial lecture following objection from right-wing students’ organisation Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which said that Father Stan Swamy was accused of committing ‘anti-national conspiracies’.
The memorial lecture, hosted by St. Xavier’s College’s department of inter-religious studies (DIRS), was to be delivered virtually on August 9 by Fr. Prem Xalxo, associate lecturer, faculty of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, on ‘Migration for livelihood: Hope amidst miseries.’
“The lecture was cancelled as the college wished to avoid disruptions during the lecture and also unnecessary controversy over the issue, which is not even central to the college’s educational offerings,” Fr. Keith D’Souza, S.J., Rector, St, Xavier’s College, said in a media statement.
Father Stan Swamy was a tribal rights activist and Jesuit priest. He was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2019 on charges related to the Bhima Koregaon violence. He was in state custody when he passed away in a Mumbai hospital in 2021.
