Prison Life, A Great Leveler
– Stan Swamy
Inside the daunting prison gates
All belongings taken away
But for the bare essentials
‘You’ comes first
‘I’ comes after
‘We’ is the air one breathes
Nothing is mine
Nothing is yours
Everything is ours
No leftover food thrown away
All shared with the birds of the air
They fly in, have their fill and happily fly out
Sorry to see so many young faces
Asked them: “Why are you here”?
They told it all, not mincing words
From each as per capacity
To each as per need
Is what socialism all about
Lo, this commonality is wrought by compulsion
If only all humans would embrace it freely and willingly
All would truly become children of Mother Earth
----
Fr. Stan Swamy, SJ, was involved in tribal rights activism for 5 decades. He was arrested on October 9 under the UAPA, being the oldest arrested for the Elgar Parishad case. The charges against him were never proven. At the time of his arrest, he was already not keeping well. However, his bail appeal on medical grounds was rejected, despite his documented suffering from Parkinson's and bilateral hearing loss. Fr. Swamy was imprisoned in Mumbai's Taloja jail, where his health declined to a point where he could not even eat or bathe by himself. Today, on July 5, 2021, he passed away in custody after a cardiac arrest.
Edit: This was in the tags earlier but if it isn't clear, this is institutional murder and this poem should not be reblogged without this context
