Stan Swamy’s funeral held at Bandra church

The funeral service for activist and Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, who died in a private hospital while waiting for medical bail in the Elgar Parishad case, was on Tuesday held under Covid-19 protocol at St Peter’s Church in Bandra, amid tributes and a small, brief vigil outside

The funeral service for activist and Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, who died in a private hospital while waiting for medical bail in the Elgar Parishad case, was on Tuesday held under Covid-19 protocol at St Peter’s Church in Bandra, amid tributes and a small, brief vigil outside. Citizens, many representing civil society organisations, began gathering at the corner of Perry Road and Hill Road around 3pm, soon after Swamy’s body was brought over from Holy Family Hospital, a few hundred metres away.

HT Image

“We were prepared to come in larger numbers, but we have to consider the Covid-19 situation. The Priests Society of Jesus sent a message telling us not to gather, and to watch Father Stan’s funeral service online. But some of us have come to honour his martyrdom,” said Dolphy D’souza, spokesperson, Bombay Catholic Sabha, an organisation with over 60,000 members spread across four districts.

Swamy, 84, who was in judicial custody, died of a cardiac arrest on Monday afternoon at the Holy Family Hospital, where he was undergoing treatment for multiple ailments.

The tribal rights activist was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from Ranchi in October 2020 under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), based on his alleged Maoist links and was kept at Navi Mumbai’s Taloja jail since his arrest. However, after his condition deteriorated, an application for bail on medical grounds was moved in the Bombay high court (HC). Through an order on May 28, the HC directed the jail authorities to shift Swamy to a hospital of his choice. Swamy, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, tested positive for Covid-19 and was kept in the ICU of the hospital. The court extended his stay after it was told that though the priest had recovered from Covid-19, he had some heart complications and his condition had deteriorated.

Those present at the funeral service expressed varied responses to the death of Swamy. While some, like Aslam Ghazi of the Association for the Protection of Civil Rights, feared that Swamy’s death would discourage dissent against the state’s allegedly anti-poor, and undemocratic policies, others like Feroze Mithiborwala (who was one of the organisers of the Mumbai Bagh protests in 2019) said that Swamy’s death will mark a turning point for the other 15 accused in the Elgar Parishad case. “This shocking incident only redoubles our resolve. We will continue to demand that the other accused be released immediately. We will also continue to demand that Father Stan Swamy’s name is cleared of all criminal allegations. The court still has a responsibility toward the innocent. It is deeply disturbing that for all his cooperation with the authorities, Father Stan was not let out on medical bail. Else we may not have been here today,” Mithiborwala said.

The Hindustan Times also attempted to speak to a few priests and nuns, who were not part of the vigil, but were passing through the closed church gates. All declined to comment. A larger gathering in support of Swamy is expected to take place today at Chaityabhoomi in Dadar, the cremation site of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Swamy’s family in Viragalur village of Tamil Nadu’s Trichy district watched his funeral live on the YouTube channel of St Peters Church.

The house where Swamy grew up was built in 1890. It is where Swamy’s 89-year-old elder brother, Irudayaswamy, and his wife live in a joint family with their children and grandchildren. Swamy’s 26-year-old grandnephew Benito Prabhu, who lives there, earlier in the day said the six family members in the house would gather together to watch the livestream of his funeral at 4pm on their TV. Swamy’s relatives, most of whom live in Trichy and Chennai, watched it online. Following his funeral, the family will hold a special mass at the local church in the village in his memory. They were denied permission to hold a procession due to Covid-19 norms.

The family had requested for Swamy’s body and ashes, but it was not possible.

“When he had visited us in 2016, he had said that his last rites should be in Ranchi. He wasn’t sure how long he would live because of his age and ill health. So his ashes will go to Ranchi, but his body will not be handed over due to the pandemic,” said Prabhu.

The family has been coordinating with Joseph Xavier, the current director of Bangalore-based Indian Social Institute – a Jesuit Centre – since Swamy’s arrest last October. “We hope they allow for his things from his Ranchi home to be sent to us,” Prabhu said. “He didn’t have too many things anyway.”

“One of our relatives saw a news channel and called us. That’s when we switched on TV. We knew he had died before we received the official information,” said Prabhu. Relatives and villagers have been coming to their ancestral home since the news of his death.

The Elgar Parishad case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches made by some activists at a conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017. Police claim these speeches triggered violence the next day near the Bhima-Koregaon war memorial located on the outskirts of the city and that the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links. Swamy was the last and oldest of the 16 people, most of them academics and human rights activists, to be arrested in the case.

(inputs from Divya Chandrababu)