Leaders of INDIA bloc parties have called upon the Centre to repeal the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), which they alleged was being used as a tool to crush dissent, as they paid homage to tribal rights activist Stan Swamy at his native village in Tamil Nadu on his fourth death anniversary on Saturday.

Unveiling a bust of Fr Stan at the St Peter’s Higher Secondary School in Viragalur village near Tiruchirappalli, DMK MP K. Kanimozhi remembered how the octogenarian who had fought for the rights of tribals all his life was denied a straw and a sipper in jail.

The Jesuit priest, who suffered from various health ailments including Parkinson’s disease, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case and charged under the UAPA. His health deteriorated in Taloja jail and he died on July 5, 2021, while awaiting bail.

Kanimozhi said Fr Stan was a victim of a system that presumed that questioning
the Centre made “you an anti-national or an urban Naxal”. The present struggle for human rights “is another freedom movement”, she added, flaying the BJP-led Centre for fostering a climate of fear to quell dissent.

Thol Thirumavalavan, the Dalit MP from Tamil Nadu and leader of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, said Fr Stan was “falsely implicated by the NIA in that case”.

“Even his laptop was hacked to fabricate evidence against him,” Thirumavalavan said.

DMK minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi claimed that Fr Stan was targeted “because he fought for tribal rights and the marginalised”.

CPM’s Tamil Nadu committee secretary, P. Shanmugam, demanded that the Centre withdraw all cases against those named in the Bhima Koregaon case and repeal the UAPA.

Stalin hails Thackerays

Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin has lauded the coming together of the estranged Thackeray cousins — Uddhav and Raj — to fight against “Hindi imposition” in Maharashtra, saying the significance of the “language rights struggle” waged by the DMK had transcended state boundaries.

In a social media post in Tamil on Saturday night after the “Voice of the Marathi” rally in Mumbai, Stalin said: “The BJP, which acts lawlessly and anarchically by stating that funds will be allocated only if Hindi is taught as a third language in Tamil Nadu schools (under NEP-2020), has been forced to back down for the second time in Maharashtra, where they govern, due to fear of the people’s uprising.”

He added that “the enthusiasm and the powerful oratory” seen at the rally in Mumbai under the leadership of the Thackeray brothers “against Hindi imposition fills us with immense excitement”.

Stalin endorsed Raj’s views questioning the rationale behind “imposing” Hindi in progressive non-Hindi-speaking states at a time when Hindi-speaking states were lagging behind in economic development.

Terming the struggle against “Hindi imposition” waged by Tamil Nadu “as not only emotional but also intellectual”, Stalin said it stood for the protection of India’s pluralistic culture.