Fa­ther Stan Swamy was an oc­to­ge­nar­ian suf­fer­ing from Parkin­son’s dis­ease. He was as­so­ci­ated with the is­sue of tribal rights over land, wa­ter and for­est. These is­sues im­pelled a Tamil to spend a large part of his adult life in Jhark­hand. Ev­i­dently, his ac­tiv­i­ties and de­nun­ci­a­tions got un­der the skin of the pow­ers that be, a crime that Fa­ther Stan Swamy had to pay for with his life. He was a pre-trial ac­cused booked un­der pro­vi­sions of UAPA for his al­leged in­volve­ment in the Bheema-Ko­re­gaon case. The charges are based on some let­ters re­ceived by email on Fa­ther Stan Swamy’s hard drive. Writer-ac­tivist Ku­mar San­jay Singh dwells on the in­ter­na­tional ram­i­fi­ca­tions of his death and the role of In­di­a’s Na­tional In­ves­tiga­tive Agency.

Right since his ar­rest Fa­ther Stan Swamy has been in­sist­ing that these let­ters were sur­rep­ti­tiously placed on his hard drive. A claim that is bol­stered by the find­ings of Ar­se­nal Con­sult­ing, a Mass­a­chu­setts based dig­i­tal foren­sics firm, that has in­ves­ti­gated sev­eral high pro­file cases in­clud­ing the Boston bomb­ing.

The con­duct of the gov­ern­ment agen­cies since the ar­rest un­der­scores that petu­lance rather than an ac­tual in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the Bheema Ko­re­gaon case was the rea­son be­hind the in­car­cer­a­tion of Fa­ther Stan Swamy.

Fa­ther Stan Swamy was ar­rested at the height of what may be termed as the desi ver­sion of Mc­carthy­ism — a puni­tive cam­paign to si­lence cri­tiques of the pre­sent gov­ern­ment by cat­e­go­riz­ing them as Ur­ban Nax­als.

Fa­ther Stan Swamy was ar­rested at the height of what may be termed as the desi ver­sion of Mc­carthy­ism — a puni­tive cam­paign to si­lence cri­tiques of the pre­sent gov­ern­ment by cat­e­go­riz­ing them as Ur­ban Nax­als.

Booked by the Pune po­lice on  22nd Au­gust 2018 when a BJP led coali­tion was in power in Ma­ha­rash­tra, the case was shifted to NIA on 25th Jan­u­ary 2020, to pre­vent the Shiv­asena led coali­tion gov­ern­ment from in­ter­ven­ing in the in­car­cer­a­tion of the oc­to­ge­nar­ian.

Or­di­nar­ily, it may be as­sumed that cases that are sig­nif­i­cantly re­lated to na­tional se­cu­rity, unity and in­tegrity are trans­ferred to the NIA. Hence, it would not be ir­ra­tional to ex­pect that the case, on be­ing trans­ferred to the NIA, will be pur­sued with vigour.

Yet in spite of this trans­fer, there is­n’t any cred­i­ble ev­i­dence of any mean­ing­ful progress in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Fa­ther Stan Swamy’s in­volve­ment in the Bheema Ko­re­gaon case.

Sev­eral re­ports in the print and elec­tronic me­dia have cited Fa­ther  Stan Swamy’s lawyer that in spite of ar­rest since 8th Oc­to­ber 2020 Fa­ther Stan Swamy was not called for ques­tion­ing by the NIA, charges on the UAPA were yet to be framed against him.

While the NIA in­deed dis­played a lack­adaisi­cal at­ti­tude to­wards in­ves­ti­ga­tion the re­acted with alacrity to cre­ate as many ob­sta­cles as pos­si­ble in deny­ing con­sti­tu­tion­ally man­dated rights avail­able to un­der trial in­mates in In­dia.

“US­CIRF con­demns in the strongest terms the de­lib­er­ate ne­glect and tar­get­ing by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia that led to the death of Fa­ther #Stan­Swamy, an 84-year-old Je­suit priest and long­time hu­man rights de­fender.”

The NIA de­nied Fa­ther Stan Swamy’s re­quest to be pro­vided with a sip­per as he could not drink wa­ter with­out it due to the rav­ages of Parkin­son’s dis­ease. It was only af­ter the court’s in­ter­ven­tion that this ba­sic re­quest was ap­proved and Fa­ther Swamy re­ceived the straw and sip­per on 4th De­cem­ber 2020. The NIA also ob­jected to the plea of in­terim bail on med­ical grounds. Fa­ther Stan Swamy was prophetic in prog­nos­ti­cat­ing that in the event of de­nial of in­terim bail he might for­feit his life to the prison. And so he did on 5th July 2021.

It needs to be un­der­scored that pro­vid­ing an ail­ing oc­to­ge­nar­ian un­der trial in­mate with a straw and sip­per or an in­terim bail on med­ical grounds would not have weak­ened the charges (as yet not framed) against fa­ther Stan Swamy. It needs to be re­minded with em­pha­sis that while the gov­ern­ment and its agen­cies have the ju­ris­dic­tion to in­car­cer­ate in­di­vid­u­als against whom they have ev­i­dence of un­law­ful and il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties,  yet de­mo­c­ra­tic gov­ern­ments are ex­pected to ex­er­cise these pow­ers with a mod­icum of re­straint, es­pe­cially when their de­ci­sions are re­lated to the con­sti­tu­tion­ally man­dated rights of its cit­i­zens, both free and in­car­cer­ated.

The gov­ern­ment in its zeal to stamp out every form of crit­i­cism and dis­sent has ap­par­ently crossed the fine line that sep­a­rates elected democ­ra­cies from elected au­toc­ra­cies. Yet it’s this brazen­ness to­wards hu­man rights and civil lib­er­ties that has proved to be its un­do­ing in Fa­ther Swamy’s death. His death has jolted the nor­mally timid op­po­si­tion into unit­edly cas­ti­gat­ing the gov­ern­ment over the death of a tribal rights ac­tivist.

It may be of con­cern for the Modi gov­ern­ment that in­ter­na­tional bod­ies. Spe­cial rap­por­teurs of UN and EU aired their writ­ten con­cern and dis­ap­proval of the death of Fa­ther  Stan Swamy as a symp­tom of the ero­sion of the rights regime in In­dia. Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were ex­pressed by the USA.

On 8th July 2012, United States Com­mis­sion on In­ter­na­tional Re­li­gious Free­dom (US­CIRF) tweeted, “US­CIRF con­demns in the strongest terms the de­lib­er­ate ne­glect and tar­get­ing by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia that led to the death of Fa­ther #Stan­Swamy, an 84-year-old Je­suit priest and long­time hu­man rights de­fender.”

It will be per­ti­nent to re­call that the USCRIF has been, since April, rec­om­mend­ing for the sec­ond year in a row, that In­dia be cat­e­go­rized as a coun­try of par­tic­u­lar con­cern (CPC) on re­li­gious free­dom. While In­dia has not been placed on the CPC list pre­pared by the US Sec­re­tary of State, there ap­pears to be a re­mark­able con­ver­gence of views be­tween the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion and the US­CIRF on the death of Fa­ther Stan Swamy.

Shortly af­ter the blunt con­dem­na­tion of Fa­ther Stan Swamy’s by US­CIRF, the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion made pub­lic its po­si­tion on the death of Fa­ther Stan Swamy while in ju­di­cial cus­tody.“We are sad­dened by the death of Fa­ther Stan Swamy, a Je­suit priest & tribal rights ac­tivist, who died in In­dian cus­tody un­der charges of the Un­law­ful Ac­tiv­i­ties Pre­ven­tion Act. We call on all gov­ern­ments to re­spect the vi­tal role of hu­man rights ac­tivists in healthy democ­ra­cies.”

It is im­por­tant to un­der­stand the sig­nif­i­cance of the shift in the in­ter­na­tional diplo­matic land­scape in the time when Fa­ther Stan Swamy was in­car­cer­ated and his death as an un­der­trial on 5th July 2021. 

It is im­por­tant to un­der­stand the sig­nif­i­cance of the shift in the in­ter­na­tional diplo­matic land­scape in the time when Fa­ther Stan Swamy was in­car­cer­ated and his death as an un­der­trial on 5th July 2021. Fa­ther Stan Swamy was ar­rested in a pe­riod dom­i­nated by an al­liance of con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ments led by Trump. Trump had wrecked the post-war mul­ti­lat­eral in­sti­tu­tions, UN, WHO, In­ter­na­tional cli­mate Agree­ment, NATO, etc., which were re­placed by an al­liance of his acolytes, Bolse­naro in South Amer­ica, Poland in Eu­rope, Is­real in West Asia, In­dia in South Asia, Japan and Aus­tralia in the Pa­cific re­gion, etc. This al­liance had lit­tle pa­tience with hu­man rights which was be­ing re­placed with trans­ac­tional ties be­tween the US and its al­lies.

With Fa­ther Stan Swamy’s death, a pow­er­ful cri­tique of the gov­ern­men­t’s poli­cies has been si­lenced. But his death is cast­ing a long shadow on In­dian ef­forts to con­sol­i­date ties with the west.

With the anoint­ment of Joe Biden as the 46th Pres­i­dent of the USA, this un­der went a pro­found change at two lev­els: 1. The post-WWII mul­ti­lat­eral in­sti­tu­tions were re­stored to their po­si­tion of promi­nence. 2. Hu­man Rights rather than trans­ac­tional ex­changes be­came the call­ing card of US, EU and NA­TO’S diplo­matic ini­tia­tives. There’s a re­mark­able con­ver­gence be­tween the USA, EU & NATO on mak­ing hu­man rights their tool of choice in deal­ing with Rus­sia and China.

There’s a re­mark­able con­ver­gence be­tween the USA, EU & NATO on mak­ing hu­man rights their tool of choice in deal­ing with Rus­sia and China.

This may ad­versely im­pact upon the im­per­a­tive of look west pol­icy con­fronting In­dia, im­pelled by the in­creas­ing hos­til­ity with China and the all too ev­i­dent down­grad­ing of the QUAD in the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion’s pol­icy on the Indo-Pa­cific re­gion. There are a litany of hu­man rights con­cerns that are shared by USA, EU & NATO viz., CAA, ab­ro­ga­tion of ar­ti­cle 370, re­peated sus­pen­sion of ac­cess to In­ter­net, vi­o­la­tion of free­dom of speech in the new in­ter­net laws, re­stric­tions on free­dom of re­li­gion, etc. Fa­ther Stan Swamy is a rather poignant ad­di­tion to this long list of grow­ing hu­man rights con­cerns of the west with Modi sarkar.

With Fa­ther Stan Swamy’s death, a pow­er­ful cri­tique of the gov­ern­men­t’s poli­cies has been si­lenced. But his death is cast­ing a long shadow on In­dian ef­forts to con­sol­i­date ties with the west.

Ev­i­dently, the re­ver­ber­a­tions of Fa­ther Stan Swamy will long out­last his pass­ing away.

Ku­mar San­jay Singh is an As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor in the De­part­ment of His­tory at the Swami Shrad­dhanand Col­lege, the Uni­ver­sity of Delhi with a spe­cial­i­sa­tion in Mu­ta­tions in In­dian State for­ma­tion post-1947, Ex­tra­or­di­nary laws es­pe­cially In­ter­nal Se­cu­rity Leg­is­la­tions and Hu­man Rights with a spe­cial fo­cus on North-east In­dia and Adi­vasi so­ci­ety.