Cancelled Stan Swamy lecture to be held online | Mumbai News
MUMBAI:
The Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, which was earlier cancelled by St Xavier’s College, will now be hosted by two social organisations – Samanvaya and People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). The lecture will be delivered by the same speaker, Fr Prem Xalxo, SJ, associate lecturer, faculty of theology at Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, and on the same topic titled ‘Migration for livelihood: Hope amidst miseries’, which was planned for the original event.The lecture will be delivered online via zoom on Sept 13. The lecture at St Xavier’s was also scheduled to be held online on Aug 9, to commemorate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.The cancellation at St Xavier’s College followed a protest letter from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student organization affiliated with the RSS, opposing the lecture. The lecture, now being hosted by the two social groups, aims to continue the dialogue on migration and livelihood and will be accessible to a wider audience, the organisers said.A member of one of the organisations told TOI Fr Prem Xalxo has agreed to deliver the same lecture that was cancelled earlier. “Many of us were disappointed by the decision to cancel it following pressure from a student organization. We firmly believe a topic as important as migration and livelihood should be discussed. We, therefore, requested the speaker to deliver the same lecture,” said the member, adding more organisations may join in to host the speaker.The letter from ABVP had alleged Fr Swamy was arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon violence case and was charged for having links with Maoist outfits. ABVP demanded cancellation of the lecture, failing which the organisation would initiate a widespread student agitation.
