ROHITH Vemula is no more with us. He was born on January 30, 1989 to a poor Scheduled Caste family from Guntur district. Rohith who aspired to be a ‘writer of science like Carl Sagan’ was pursuing his Ph.D. in Science, Technology and Society Studies at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) at the time of his death. He has cleared both the UGC-JRF and CSIR-JRF. He was a scholar of great promise and a vocal student leader.

Rohith was not the first, several dalit students have killed themselves in the last decade due to institutional discrimination at University of Hyderabad. Several committees have been constituted by the university authorities to probe into the circumstances which led to the spate of suicides by dalit students and all these committees identified the existence of ‘overt and covert forms of caste discrimination’ as the prime cause of these suicides. The university administration has been reluctant to learn anything from these committee reports and did not implement the recommendations. As a result, it has failed to foster the intellectual and personal growth of students from socially oppressed backgrounds.

EVENTS THAT

KILLED ROHITH

The events that unfolded since the midnight of August 3, 2015 have played a critical role in pushing the young scholar to take his own life. As a response to the vandalism by ABVP at the screening of the documentary film “Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai” in Delhi University, Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA) organised a protest film screening at the University of Hyderabad. Irked by this, the ABVP UoH unit president Susheel Kumar posted an acrimonious statement on Facebook calling ASA cadre “goons.” ASA demanded an apology from the president of ABVP in the presence of campus security personnel following which Susheel Kumar apologised to the ASA cadre and left the campus immediately. The following day, Susheel Kumar got himself admitted to a hospital under the pretext of having been attacked by ASA cadre and filed a fabricated police complaint against five members of ASA. Later, the medical report revealed that he had undergone treatment for acute appendicitis.

INSTITUTIONAL &

PROCEDURAL LAPSES

Following the complaint by Susheel, the University Proctorial Board chaired by the chief proctor Alok Pandey (an open admirer of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) conducted an enquiry and submitted its report to the vice-chancellor on August 12, 2015. The first report states that, “The Board could not get any hard evidence of beating of Mr Susheel Kumar,” and the Proctorial Board decided to issue a ‘strong warning’ to Susheel Kumar for his comments on Facebook, and  to the ASA cadre for going to Susheel Kumar’s hostel and asking for an apology!

The Proctorial Board submitted another report to the vice chancellor on August 31, 2015, which states that “it was evidently clear that Mr Susheel Kumar was abused, manhandled, beaten”. The Board’s decisions in the second report are “Complete suspension from University for ongoing semester” for five dalit Ph.D research scholars affiliated to ASA.

The findings of the first report and the second report of the Proctorial Board contradict each other. The first report found no evidence of physical assault, while the second report, submitted after the intervention of BJP ministers, suddenly found clear evidence of physical assault and decided to completely suspend five dalit students.

All the Left and democratic students’ organisations protested against this atrocious decision taken by the university administration. The then vice-chancellor R P Sharma revoked the suspension and assured that a new committee will look into the case ‘afresh’.

The current vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile had constituted in haste the Executive Council (EC) sub-committee to probe the matter. Ironically, the Dean Student’s Welfare who is a co-accused in the case filed at the court by the BJP members was also co-opted in the EC sub-committee. The EC sub-committee did not conduct the enquiry ‘afresh’ as promised by the previous vice-chancellor, neither did it offer the opportunity to the accused students to present their defense, and instead, it came to its decisions to suspend the dalit students from the hostel till the completion of their respective courses based on the controversial Proctorial Board report. The EC resolution also barred them from participating in students’ union elections, denied them entry into the administration building and public places in groups. They are allowed to be “seen” only in their respective departments, the library and academic seminars of their subjects. In clear terms the EC had ordered a social boycott of the involved dalit students.

The nature of these punishments brings out the executive councils’ inability to distinguish between punishment and humiliation, and this goes against the democratic spirit and values enshrined in our constitution. On what basis did the EC order that these set of students cannot be ‘seen’ in public places in groups? On what basis did the committee bar these students from attending the seminars not related to their subjects? The attempts to portray the presence of these dalit students as ‘threat’ ‘pollutants’ exposes the limited and conservative thinking of the EC.

BJP MINISTERS

INTERVENTIONS

Bandaru Dattatreya, minister of state (independent charge), labour and employment, took exceptional interest in this case and wrote a letter on August 17, 2015 to Smriti Irani, minister of human resource development, explicitly seeking her intervention in ABVP president, Susheel Kumar’s case! In his letter, which is ironically written as a first-person account, he brands the University of Hyderabad as “a den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics”. And he comes to this conclusion because ASA had held protest against the execution of “Yakub Memon”! It has to be noted that many law experts and political parties opposed the manner in which Yakub Memon was executed. For instance, Justice AP Shah, former Delhi High Court chief justice and chairman of Law Commission of India had criticised the execution of Yakub Memon. Then according to Dattatreya, would Justice AP Shah be anti-national and extremist?

The characterisation of University of Hyderabad being “a den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics” by the minister is politically motivated. It exposes his intolerance towards alternative vantage points, especially those of dalits.

Following Dattatreya’s letter, the MHRD wrote to the university more than four times within three months enquiring about the actions taken on the issues raised by MoS for labour & employment. In one such letter written on October 20, 2015 the MHRD has asked the vice-chancellor of UoH to “look into the matter personally”. This is a clear violation of the autonomy of the university. MHRD has no business whatsoever to intervene and influence the process of enquiry on internal disciplinary issues of any university. Under these political pressures, right from the BJP MLC Ramchander Rao, MoS Dattatreya to the cabinet minister for human resource development, the EC had suspended five dalit students and ordered their social boycott, which culminated in the death of Rohith Vemula.

DEVELOPMENTS AFTER

ROHITH’S DEATH

University of Hyderabad has been shut down by the protesting students since January 18, 2016 demanding justice for Rohith. Students are now on an indefinite hunger strike. 

A case has been filed on six persons including the vice-chancellor P Appa Rao, MoS for labour & employment Dattatreya and BJP MLC Ramchander Rao under IPC section 306 Abetment to Suicide and SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act.

Various Left and progressive student organisations and the elected students’ union in UoH have formed a Joint Action Committee for Social Justice. The JAC demands that the culprits named in the FIR should be punished under the SC/ST PoA act; Appa Roa must resign or be dismissed from the post of vice-chancellor; employment to the kin and ex gratia of Rs 50 lakhs to the family of Rohith; Police cases filed against the protesting students must be dropped and suspension of the dalit students be revoked with immediate effect.

The University of Hyderabad Teachers Association and the UoH SC/ST Teachers and Officers Forum have conveyed their solidarity with the ongoing struggle. The SC/ST Teachers and Officers Forum have resolved to lay down the administrative positions they hold at UoH in protest.

People from across the globe have expressed their solidarity with the struggle for justice. Intellectuals from premier educational institutions from various parts of the world have written to the vice-chancellor demanding justice for Rohith.  Prominent leaders of various political parties (including AIMIM, AAP, CPI(M), CPI(ML), Congress, VCK, YSRCP etc.) have visited the site of struggle and expressed their solidarity.

Meanwhile, feeling the heat and intensity of the struggle, the BJP has also started unleashing lies in the media to save face. The bhakts are attempting to create a terrorist out of the dead man Rohith. They are trying hard to portray Rohith’s suicide to be solely due to personal reasons. The JAC at the UoH has established an information cell to counter these misleading and malicious propaganda.

 On January 20 Smriti Irani took recourse to sophistry to absolve herself and MoS Dattatreya from being responsible for the death of Rohith Vemula. She made futile attempts at damage control by denying that MHRD mounted any pressure on the UoH administration. She argued that it was a normal procedure to send consecutive remainders seeking explanations on any matter of interest and the same was done for ABVP president’s physical assault case. She contradicted herself in the next line by arguing that law and order is a state subject and therefore she cannot intervene in this case. She also argued that this issue is not a dalit versus non-dalit issue. Framing of this statement is little tricky, but it is intended to convey that it is not an issue of caste discrimination. Rohith and other students involved were vocal about the discriminations that dalits face within the Hindu society. This infuriated the Hindutva brigade and that is why they have targeted Rohith and his friends. Caste discrimination undeniably lies at the centre of the whole events that lead to the killing of Rohith.

The honourable HRD minister has misrepresented various facts. She told the press that a senior most dalit professor actually headed the EC sub-committee which took the decision to suspend five dalit students. This is a blatant lie. The EC sub-committee was headed by Vipin Srivastava, who comes from an upper caste. Moreover since its inception, no dalit professor was appointed as a member of the EC. She blamed the hostel warden who happens to be a dalit as responsible for asking the suspended students to vacate the hostel. The wardens have no decision-making power, they have just implemented the orders of the EC. In response to her attempts to put the blame on dalit teachers, over 10 dalit teachers have resigned from the administrative positions they hold at UoH.

Many Dalit students have committed suicide in the recent past at the UoH, but this is the first time a politically vocal student leader of the dalit movement has killed himself. He could not withstand the pressure exerted by the UoH administration and the entire State machinery. He could not bear the fact that his only opportunity at a better future was snatched away from him. The oppressive structures are so strong that even an activist for social justice is turned into a victim of caste discrimination. It is time that we recognise in no uncertain terms that caste discrimination is a reality in higher educational institutions and make all efforts to ensure that no more dalit students are pushed over the edge!

(The writer is a research scholar at the University of Hyderabad)