NEW DELHI, Dec. 19 -- When Tribals in many places were being denied their legitimate rights, Fr. Stan Swamy's consistent question was: "How long will the Adivasis be victims of systemic oppression?" His was a prophetic voice against an oppressive government and its minions. Like a prophet of olden days, he spoke up for the afflicted and the persecuted; and he paid with his life for what he stood for, and what he spoke. At a time when fascist tendencies are gnawing into the fourth pillar of the largest democracy in the world, journalism is at peril. The prophetic voices of journalists that once kept governments and their officials on tenterhooks have turned feeble. The searing words that exposed the wrong-doings of the government were enou...