By Scroll Staff
St Xavier’s College in Mumbai has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, which was to be held on Saturday, after protests by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, reported The Free Press Journal.
The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The lecture, titled “Migration for Livelihood: Hope amidst Miseries”, was to be delivered virtually by Father Prem Xalxo, professor of Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome.
On Tuesday, the ABVP unit in Mumbai stated a group of its workers had met with the principal of St Xavier’s College and submitted a letter demanding the “immediate cancellation” of the lecture.
“ABVP firmly believes that organising a lecture in memory of a person accused in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case, facing UAPA charges for links with banned Maoist groups, is an attempt to glorify urban Naxalism on campus,” said the Hindutva group.
It also urged the authorities in Maharashtra to take “strict action” against such events being held under the “guise of academic freedom”.
Swamy was among a group of 16 lawyers and activists who had been accused of instigating caste violence between Maratha and Dalit groups in the Bhima Koregaon case in 2018 and was charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. He died on July 5, 2021, nearly nine months after he was arrested.
The 84-year-old had suffered from several ailments, including Parkinson’s disease and had contracted the coronavirus infection at the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai.
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