Fr. Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture to be Held Online After St. Xavier’s Cancellation

Mumbai, August 26, 2025: The Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture, earlier cancelled by St. Xavier's College, will now be organised by two social groups — Samanvaya and the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), The Times of India reported. The lecture will feature the same speaker, Fr. Prem Xalxo, SJ, associate lecturer at the Faculty of Theology, Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and will focus on the same topic, “Migration for livelihood: Hope amidst miseries,” which was originally planned.

The rescheduled lecture will take place online via Zoom on September 13. The St. Xavier’s event had also been planned in virtual mode on August 9, coinciding with the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

The college’s cancellation followed a protest letter from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student body linked to the RSS, which opposed the lecture. Now hosted by the two organisations, the lecture aims to continue the conversation on migration and livelihood, while also reaching a broader audience, the organisers said.

A representative from one of the groups told TOI that Fr. Xalxo had 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 organisation. We firmly believe a topic as important as migration and livelihood should be discussed. We, therefore, requested the speaker to deliver the same lecture,” the member said, adding that more organisations might join in to support the event.

Source: Times of India

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