St. Xavier’s College Mumbai cancels Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture after ABVP protests
Mumbai: St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, scheduled for Saturday, following protests from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
The ABVP’s Mumbai unit said on Tuesday that its members had met the college principal and submitted a letter demanding the “immediate cancellation” of the event. The organisation claimed that holding a lecture in memory of a person accused in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case and charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) amounted to “glorifying urban Naxalism on campus.”
The group urged Maharashtra authorities to take “strict action” against such programmes, alleging they were being conducted under the “guise of academic freedom.”
Organised by the college’s Department of Inter-Religious Studies, the lecture was to have been delivered virtually by Father Prem Xalxo on the theme “Migration for Livelihood: Hope amidst Miseries.”
Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit priest and human rights defender, was arrested in 2020 for alleged links to a banned Maoist organisation accused of instigating violence in Maharashtra in 2018. A long-time advocate for tribal rights, Swamy spent nine months in jail without trial under the UAPA before his death in July 2021.
Despite suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other serious ailments, he was denied bail multiple times. In May 2021, he was hospitalised after contracting COVID-19 and died following a cardiac arrest ahead of a scheduled bail hearing.
He was the oldest of a dozen activists, academics, and rights defenders charged in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case.
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Women BJP MLAs protest against opposition in UP assembly premises
Lucknow (PTI): Women BJP MLAs held a protest in the Vidhan Bhawan complex before the one-day special session of Uttar Pradesh assembly, slamming the opposition for defeating the passage of a bill, which would have led to implementation of the Women's Reservation Law, in the Lok Sabha.
This followed another demonstration by Samajwadi Party MLAs, who alleged that the BJP was misleading public in the name of women's reservation.
The women BJP legislators assembled in front of Chaudhary Charan Singh's statue in the assembly premises, holding banners inscribed with the slogan "Insult to Matrushakti (women's power), India will not tolerate it". The protesting members entered the main hall of Vidhan Bhawan carrying the banners.
Participating in the protest, the state Minister for Women Welfare and Child Development, Baby Rani Maurya, told reporters that all opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, had opposed the women's reservation, a stance for which they would have to pay a heavy political price.
"On this issue, all of us women stand united. We will ensure that we secure our reservation," she said.
BJP MLA Ketki Singh remarked that their protest represents the collective outrage of millions of women across the state.
Singh asserted that the opposition has betrayed women by creating hurdles in the path of women's reservation. The current demonstration is merely the beginning, and very soon, women from every street, intersection and household will join the protest movement, she said.
Minister Vijaylakshmi Gautam said, "We strongly condemn the despicable act committed by the Samajwadi Party and the Congress in an attempt to hold back 'half the population' (women). Their action was directed against the very bill that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had introduced to empower and strengthen Nari Shakti (women's power), and which he strived to pass expeditiously."
Uttar Pradesh assembly is holding a one-day special session on Thursday. During the session, the government is set to move a censure motion against the opposition parties over their failure to pass the Constitution Amendment Bill, which would have led to implementation of the Women's Reservation Act, in the Lok Sabha.
