Stan Swamy

Let me use a cliché, Stan Swamy's death is only the tip of the ice berg. That a man who devoted his entire life to the service of the most marginalised people of our "great" country had to spend his last days in prison, incapacitated by illness and denied basic dignity by the cruelty and blindness of the system is a reminder that the state machinery is just that, a machine without a heart. Yet that machine or the people running the machine are terrified of men and women who choose to live the life of a caring and sensitive human being rather than go with the flow. Justified concerns have been raised about the other so-called accused in Bhime Coregon case. But there are thousands of others languishing in other jails across the country charged under UAPA. People who were locked in jails for years are finally let off because they had really done no wrong doing. We read or watch those news and forget within a couple of days. Just like our mainstream media has conveniently firgot Swamy. But let us not forget a bunch of people have so much power concentrated in their hands that they can ruin the lives of anyone if they choose to do so.