The Sinister, Shameless White Washers

The controversy raging on social media over the Department of Inter-Religious Studies at the St. Xavier’s College organising an online lecture of Father Prem Xalxo to mark the ‘annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture’, has brought to fore the larger phenomenon of the clan of sinister, shameless whitewashers of people who were accused of links with anti-India Maoists. The said lecture was cancelled after Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has written letter to the Principal of the College taking strong objection about the lecture. After the cancellation of program by college, some of the left leaning media, journalist, social media influencers created ruckus on social media and demanded not to bow down to the demands of ABVP. This clearly shows left ecosystem in Media and Academia have sinister nexus which stands in solidarity with Urban Naxals.

This is not the first time that such a memorial lecture has been organised to ‘celebrate’, and thus ‘whitewash’, an accused in Maoism links case. For the uninitiated, Stan Swamy, who is no more now, was accused of having links with the Communist Party of India (Maoist). He faced charges of the grave nature. In fact, when he was arrested in Bhima-Koregaon violence case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had strongly opposed his release despite pressure mounted by the ‘whitewashers’ that he was old. During COVID-19, he died.

Apart from the ‘Snakes in the Ganga’ within India, his case was taken up by notoriously anti-India media like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Just sample this paragraph from BBC’s report of Stan Swamy’s death: “Jailed Indian tribal rights activist Stan Swamy has died of a cardiac arrest in Mumbai city. He was 84. The Jesuit priest, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, was moved to a private hospital in May (2021) after he tested positive for Covid. Swamy, the oldest person to be accused of terrorism in India, was arrested in October 2020. He was among 16 renowned activists, academics and lawyers, who were charged under a draconian anti-terror law.”

It becomes apparent that so-called ‘independent’ BBC’s intention was to arouse sympathy for the Maoist-links accused and to target the Indian government over arrest of other persons facing the same charges. This was nothing but an attempt to not only challenge the Indian judicial system and the Indian investigation agencies, but also to ‘whitewash’ and acquit the accused without any verification. The same modus operandi is used by the clan of ‘whitewashers’ to create social media storm to generate sympathy and plant the seeds of discontent among the common people against the Constitutional and democratic institutions of India. They peddle narratives with an intention to create suspicion over integrity and effectiveness of the Indian institutions.

This has been happening for years now. The previous governments buckled under pressure of such so-called civil society, rights groups, activists, and international media. But, over the past decade or so, these nefarious anti-India elements stand exposed badly. They know that they cannot win in the courts of law, given the solid evidence collected by the Indian agencies. Hence, they try to secure bail on technical grounds. Then the accused released on bail write books or articles, feature in some documentaries or articles in so-called international media. Social media campaigns have already been mentioned. The entire effort is to create a doctored image of the Maoist-links accused as a ‘defender of human rights’ or ‘tribal rights activist’ or ‘an academic’ or ‘a revolutionary poet’ or ‘a renowned social worker’ etc. And, all this happens in an extra-judicial manner, that is, while the accused have not been acquitted by the Indian courts of law.

Stan Swamy is not the lone case in this regard. Not long ago, it happened in case of Prof G. N. Saibaba, who was always projected as ‘wheelchair-bound, polio-stricken Delhi University professor’. A committee was formed in his ‘defence’. In 2017, he was convicted by a sessions court in Gadchiroli, but was assisted by the ‘whitewashers’ to challenge this. The High Court acquitted him on technical grounds, following which the campaign to malign the Indian institutions started quickly in the usual suspect circles.

Prior to that, Anuradha Ghandy memorial lecture had landed in controversy over invitation to a controversial figure Angela Davis. But the fact that a memorial lecture committee was formed to ‘celebrate’ (whitewash) a person identified in police records as an active Maoist for long years, tells the story. In fact, after her death, her ‘articles’ (provocative and distorted at best) were compiled in the form of a book titled ‘Scripting the Change’ by her ‘friends’.

There are several examples in which a person accused of Maoist links or an active Maoist was championed as a ‘rights activist’ but was later acknowledged by the Naxalites/Maoists as their own. Unfortunately, when such admissions come from the Maoists, no one holds these ‘whitewashers’ guilty of time.

(The writer is a lawyer practicing in Mumbai. Views personal)