Protest­ing the re­cent ar­rest of Fa­ther Stanis­laus Lour­duswamy un­der the un­law­ful pro­vi­sions of the black law -Un­law­ful Ac­tiv­i­ties Pre­ven­tion Act, The World Sikh News ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh writes an Open Let­ter to him ex­press­ing full sol­i­dar­ity with him and the causes dear to him for which he has worked tire­lessly for decades. The grow­ing cli­mate of re­li­gious, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal in­tol­er­ance in In­dia is a grave threat to peace, hu­man rights and the es­tab­lish­ment of an egal­i­tar­ian so­ci­ety. WSN ed­i­tor seeks strong ad­mon­ish­ment of In­dia by the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity and hopes for his re­lease and oth­ers de­tained for months and years at Taloja prison, Mum­bai.

DEAR FA­THER STANIS­LAUS LOUR­DUSWAMY: WA­HE­GURU JI KA KHALSA, WA­HE­GURU JI KI FATEH! GREET­INGS IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE LIGHT OF EVERY SOUL.  As you lan­guish in the prison walls of Taloja jail, near Mum­bai, in the com­pany of hu­man rights ac­tivist stal­warts ar­raigned there for months and years by In­di­a’s Na­tional In­ves­tiga­tive Agency, please ac­cept my greet­ings and prayer of sol­i­dar­ity for your well-be­ing and early re­lease from the clutches of the In­dian state which sees a “ter­ror­ist” in you.

I am aware of what the Bharatiya Janata Party ear­lier did to you by foist­ing sedi­tion cases against you dur­ing their last term in Jhark­hand. I am also con­scious of the ear­lier at­tempts made by the Ma­ha­rash­tra gov­ern­ment to ar­rest you. They are now mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for you by lev­el­ling the non-bail­able sin­is­ter pro­vi­sions of the Un­law­ful Ac­tiv­i­ties Pre­ven­tion Act, 1967.

The man­ner in which you were vir­tu­ally dragged in Ranchi at the time of ar­rest and taken aboard a flight to Mum­bai and then straight to the court angers me but what both­ers me more is that the courts there try­ing the Bhima Ko­re­gaon case have failed the crim­i­nal ju­rispru­dence sys­tem and have shown scant re­spect for hu­man rights, es­pe­cially to se­ri­ously ill ac­tivists de­tained in the case.

When a frail but Tamil-spir­ited Je­suit priest like you ad­vo­cates the rights of the Adi­va­sis -In­di­a’s ig­nored in­dige­nous peo­ples for five decades with­out fear and in the most ded­i­cated and com­mit­ted man­ner, the In­dian state be­comes rest­less and ruth­less. This baf­fles and an­noys petty po­lice per­son­nel, ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cers and po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship of In­dia. Em­pa­thy and non-vi­o­lence are only high-sound­ing slo­gans.

It is a trib­ute to your hu­man­ity that you chose to serve the un­der­priv­i­leged and voice­less Adi­va­sis in the eco­nom­i­cally less pro­gres­sive state of Bi­har, through ed­u­ca­tion and em­pow­er­ment.

I rec­og­nize your con­tri­bu­tion to sow the seeds of self-rule amongst the Adi­va­sis and Mul­ni­wa­sis -in­dige­nous peo­ples, the abo­rig­i­nals of In­dia, who suf­fer apartheid of the kind that will put last cen­tu­ry’s South-African apartheid to shame. 

I rec­og­nize your con­tri­bu­tion to sow the seeds of self-rule amongst the Adi­va­sis and Mul­ni­wa­sis -in­dige­nous peo­ples, the abo­rig­i­nals of In­dia, who suf­fer apartheid of the kind that will put last cen­tu­ry’s South-African apartheid to shame. Your cam­paign led to the cre­ation of the state of Jhark­hand -an area of the coun­try which is rich in more than 40 nat­ural re­sources.

As you wit­nessed the loot of the vast re­sources by the landed class, the pow­er­ful in­dus­tri­al­ists, multi-na­tional com­pa­nies, vested so­cial in­ter­ests and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, your de­ter­mi­na­tion kept you go­ing for five decades. Scan­dal af­ter scan­dal over the decades, run­ning into mil­lions was a scourge which kept the Adi­va­sis at rock-bot­tom, but you con­tin­ued the fight and it is this com­mit­ment which has brought you face to face with the grow­ing cli­mate of re­li­gious, so­cial and po­lit­i­cal in­tol­er­ance in In­dia.

I have not had the courage and op­por­tu­nity to serve like you, but I have seen the stark poverty in the hin­ter­lands of Jhark­hand and have eaten the poor­est diet Chokha -boiled rice, salt and but­ter­milk, which is a sta­ple diet for some even to­day, barely once a day.

Your com­pas­sion­ate work for un­der­tri­als in pris­ons of Jhark­hand has few par­al­lels in to­day’s In­dia.

I hope and pray for your early re­lease and all of those lodged in the Taloja Jail -Anand Tel­tumbde, Gau­tam Navlakha, Hany Babu, Jy­oti Jag­tap, Sagar Gorkhe, Sudha Bharad­waj, Ver­non Gon­salves, Arun Fer­reira, Prof. Var­avara Rao, Sud­hir Dhawale, Rona Wil­son, Shoma Sen, Ma­hesh Raut, Suren­dra Gadling and Prof. Sai Baba.

I have not had the courage and op­por­tu­nity to serve like you, but I have seen the stark poverty in the hin­ter­lands of Jhark­hand and have eaten the poor­est diet Chokha –boiled rice, salt and but­ter­milk, which is a sta­ple diet for some even to­day, barely once a day.

I have seen the dif­fer­ence that Je­suits have brought through ed­u­ca­tion in the sub­urbs of Ranchi amongst the mar­gin­alised and the credit for this goes solely to God’s men and women like you.

I also have had the priv­i­lege of stay­ing at the In­dian So­cial In­sti­tute in New Delhi which fol­lowed the set­ting up of the In­dian So­cial In­sti­tute in Ben­galuru by you and oth­ers. The em­pow­er­ment in hu­man rights amongst the mar­gin­alised Dalit, Adi­va­sis and women by such in­sti­tutes hardly goes down the throat of the ra­bidly com­mu­nal and fas­cist right-wing brigade which is spear­head­ing and spread­ing hate in In­dia.

I am cer­tain that the All In­dia Catholic Uni­ver­sity Fed­er­a­tion and other Chris­t­ian bod­ies will not shy from tak­ing up your cause and strongly protest your de­ten­tion. The world com­mu­nity, the Vat­i­can, the in­ter­na­tional Church bod­ies have no time to ad­mon­ish In­dia.

I am cer­tain that the All In­dia Catholic Uni­ver­sity Fed­er­a­tion and other Chris­t­ian bod­ies will not shy from tak­ing up your cause and strongly protest your de­ten­tion. The world com­mu­nity, the Vat­i­can, the in­ter­na­tional Church bod­ies have no time to ad­mon­ish In­dia.

Thou­sands of Adi­va­sis owe their ed­u­ca­tion, clean drink­ing wa­ter and ba­sic health ser­vices to you. I am hope­ful that the dili­gence and dogged­ness with which you have been pre­vent­ing large-scale dis­place­ment of Adi­va­sis from their tra­di­tional home­lands, pro­tect­ing their min­eral re­sources and fight­ing for Dalit rights will en­sure a groundswell of sup­port for you in the times to come.

Sikhs are fight­ers and the re­sponse of the peo­ple of Pun­jab to the un­law­ful and anti-peo­ple farm laws is a clear barom­e­ter that Pun­jab will not al­low tram­pling of its rights nor will it al­low the ob­struc­tion of jus­tice for hu­man rights de­fend­ers like you.

Dear Fa­ther Stan, let it be known loud and clear that the strug­gle for jus­tice, ini­ti­ated by you will con­tinue. God will en­sure that your good work con­tin­ues. Sikh ac­tivists across the Sikh hu­man rights and po­lit­i­cal spec­trum join me in ex­press­ing full sol­i­dar­ity with you and stand com­mit­ted to op­pos­ing forces of fas­cism and in­tol­er­ance.

Clearly, you are at the re­ceiv­ing end be­cause you do not fit-in to the one-lan­guage, one-re­li­gion, uni­lat­eral and uni­form poli­cies build-up in this coun­try. You are be­ing dis­crim­i­nated against be­cause of your re­li­gion and your pas­sion for peo­ples’ rights.

Your books -“To­wards em­pow­er­ment of Dalit Chris­tians”, “The trou­ble with Em­pire – Chal­lenges to Mod­ern British Im­pe­ri­al­ism”, “En­counter be­tween Marx­ian phi­los­o­phy and the­ol­ogy of hu­man­i­sa­tion”, “Re­sist­ing the sta­tus Quo – Trans­form­ing so­ci­ety” and “Why eth­nic par­ties suc­ceed – Pa­tron­age and eth­nic-head counts in In­dia” will serve to in­spire the Adi­vasi youth, the Dalit youth and the hu­man rights de­fender, the so­cial ac­tivist for change to be­come self-suf­fi­cient, smart and fight for in­jus­tice.

Dear Fa­ther Stan, let it be known loud and clear that the strug­gle for jus­tice, ini­ti­ated by you will con­tinue. God will en­sure that your good work con­tin­ues. Sikh ac­tivists across the Sikh hu­man rights and po­lit­i­cal spec­trum join me in ex­press­ing full sol­i­dar­ity with you and stand com­mit­ted to op­pos­ing forces of fas­cism and in­tol­er­ance.

I hope and pray for your early re­lease and all of those lodged in the Taloja Jail -Anand Tel­tumbde, Gau­tam Navlakha, Hany Babu, Jy­oti Jag­tap, Sagar Gorkhe, Sudha Bharad­waj, Ver­non Gon­salves, Arun Fer­reira, Prof. Var­avara Rao, Sud­hir Dhawale, Rona Wil­son, Shoma Sen, Ma­hesh Raut, Suren­dra Gadling and Prof. Sai Baba.
Yours fra­ter­nally

Jag­mo­han Singh
Ed­i­tor, The World Sikh News