Overview

• St Xavier’s College announced on August 9 that it was canceling its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture after the ABVP objected to honoring a person charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
• The Department of Inter-Religious Studies had organized a virtual lecture by Fr Prem Xalxo on migration and livelihood challenges.
• The ABVP’s August 4 letter accused the event of glorifying Swamy, a main accused in the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case who died in custody in 2021.
• Rector Fr Keith D’Souza cited the presumption of innocence in Indian criminal law and underscored the lecture series’ mission to foster respectful scholarly dialogue.
• Alumni and faculty members criticized the decision as yielding to ideological pressure and warned it could undermine academic autonomy on campus.