23 Dec 2020: Jesuit Priest Father Stan Swamy, the 83-year-old human rights defender, who is lodged in Taloja Jail, has written a short poem in his latest communication from jail. As he prepares to spend Christmas in jail, instead with his beloved tribal community and his colleagues back home in Ranchi, Swamy shares thoughts on equality, compassion, and even of oneness with nature, that is perhaps what most inmates hold on to as they await justice.
The oldest person to be questioned and arrested in the Elgar Parishad case, Fr Stan Swamy, was sent to judicial custody by a Special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court. The well known tribal rights activist and educator was arrested by the NIA from his home in Bagaicha in Ranchi, at night on October 8. Frail and aged, was then taken at dawn on October 9, by the 9.30 A.M flight from Ranchi to Mumbai for a hearing at the Sessions court and the charge sheet was filed.
Fr. Swamy has been lodged in Taloja Jail since then. He suffers from Parkinson’s disease, which makes it difficult for him to even hold a cup or a glass to drink water. He had to move court to be provided a straw or sipper for this purpose, but the National Investigative Agency (NIA) was given 20 days to respond to the request. It took immense public pressure for his old sipper to be handed to him, many weeks after his request.
For Christmas 2020, the Jesuit Priest who had jumped the walls of the Church to serve the Jharkandi people, continues to hope for a just and wual world. The poem below, written from his prison cell, poem encapsulates his thoughts this Christmas…
Prison Life, A Great Leveler
– Stan Swamy
Inside the daunting prison gates
All belongings taken away
But for the bare essentials
‘You’ comes first
‘I’ comes after
‘We’ is the air one breathes
Nothing is mine
Nothing is yours
Everything is ours
No leftover food thrown away
All shared with the birds of the air
They fly in, have their fill and happily fly out
Sorry to see so many young faces
Asked them: “Why are you here”?
They told it all, not mincing words
From each as per capacity
To each as per need
Is what socialism all about
Lo, this commonality is wrought by compulsion
If only all humans would embrace it freely and willingly
All would truly become children of Mother Earth
