It has been the policy of the ultra-left organisations to exploit the vulnerable Dalits and use them as troops to fight with the State. Perhaps that explains why in most of the Maoist movements in India, mostly Dalits get killed in police firing
The untimely death of Rohith Chakravarti Vemula, a young PhD scholar of Hyderabad Central University, has sparked protests and outrage in India and grabbed widespread media attention as an alleged case of discrimination against Dalits. And elite educational institutions have been allegedly perceived as a persistent remnant of caste-based discrimination against students belonging to backward castes.
Is Rohith really a victim of caste discrimination or political conspiracyIJ Or is it his complete disillusionment with his life and ideology that led him to depression and suicideIJ
Apparently Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA) members organised a protest against the hanging of 1993 Mumbai blasts’ convict Yakub Memon and condemned the ABVP attack on the screening of the documentary Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai in the Delhi University. The ABVP activists led by Sushil Kumar objected to their protest which led to a fracas. Rohith and his friends allegedly assaulted Sushil following which his mother registered a complaint and went to the High Court. Meanwhile, the correspondence between the Union HRD Ministry and the Hyderabad Central University led to an enquiry which resulted in the expulsion of five Dalit scholars from the hostel and almost all public spaces on campus. The university reportedly stopped paying Rohith his monthly stipend of Rs25,000 since July 2015 allegedly owing to his active involvement in the ASA. Moving out of their hostel rooms, they set up a tent on the campus and begun a “relay hunger protest”. Amidst this protest, Rohith hanged himself leaving behind a suicide note.
The suicide note gives a glimpse of his magnanimous and ingenuous personality. Rohith writes, “I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan.” It makes us curious to know how a brilliant scholar who loved science and worried only about the environment grew into the angry young man demanding answers on identity and caste.
Rohith’s journey to the university began in 2009 when he had enrolled for an MSc and cast his vote in the student’s union election for the ABVP till he hanged himself — symbolically with a blue banner of the ASA.
Rohith, an ardent scholar of science, believed in science and technology as instruments of social change. He wished to make life easier for the poor. But with time he had developed a different understanding of identity and politics. He felt there was more to do in life than just study and thus shifted from science to social sciences. Rohith, disturbed by the injustices prevalent in the society, took solace in BR Ambedkar and Karl Marx.
He, fascinated with Communism, joined the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), but shifted to the ASA over its neglect of caste, and became its youngest ideologue. Evidently Rohith, apart from being an intelligent scholar, was a sensitive human being. He was concerned about others’ pain and suffering. What led him to take this drastic stepIJ Why did he write that the value of a man was reduced to his “immediate identity and nearest possibility”IJ
Though it’s extremely insensitive to explore the reasons why an intelligent scholar like Rohith committed suicide, especially when he is no longer here to correct us, but the way his death is being politicised compels us to contemplate on what really went wrong.
Unquestionably, delay in disbursement of scholarship, his ideological differences with ABVP, the fracas and the resultant correspondence with the Ministers, withdrawal of hostel facility aggravated the struggle Rohith was experiencing as a poor Dalit. But can it lead to suicideIJ Rohith was known for his unflinching resolve, as claimed by his friends. How can a person with such strong resolution and who considers Ambedkar as his ideal gave up while fighting with the unjust administrationIJ A person who has experienced adversity and humiliation throughout his/her life just because he/she was accidently born into a particular caste or religion, he/she gets immune to poverty and suffering. At least they won’t commit suicide for poverty. Most researches related to suicide indicates that a poor rarely commits suicide when he fails to get one square meal while the rich and the middle class cannot handle sudden misfortune or financial loss and commit suicide. There must be some other reasons for Rohith to end his life.
Perhaps Rohith understood how he was reduced “To a vote. To a number. To a thing.” Why else he would write, “I loved science, stars, nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs coloured. Our originality valid through artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt”IJ
Perhaps he was talking about someone he had been associated with --- his friends, organisation or someone else he was close to. One might feel frustrated or disgusted at the apathetic attitude of the administration but how can one be hurtIJ We get hurt when we get disillusioned. Isn’t itIJ
Was he cheatedIJ Was his weakness of being easily antagonised exploited by the political party he believed inIJ
It has become important to re-read the struck-out portion of the suicide letter. “The Ambedkar Students’ Association, the Students’ Federation of India, anything and everything exist for their own sake. Seldom the interest of a person and an organisation matches. To get power, to become famous or to be important in between boundaries and to think we are up to changing the system, very often we overestimate the acts and find solace in traits. Of course I must give credit to both these groups for making, introducing me to wonderful literature and people.”
The context of being reduced to a vote becomes relevant post reading the struck-out portion. Whom did Rohith vote forIJ Certainly not ABVP. A revolutionary person like Rohith cannot commit suicide while fighting his opponents. But a sensitive person cannot digest if betrayed by own people. In the war of ideology one cannot perhaps compromise which often causes disillusionment.
It has been the policy of the ultra-left organisations to exploit the vulnerable Dalits and use them as troops to fight with the State. Perhaps it explains why in most of the Maoist movements in India, mostly Dalits get killed in police firing.
How else is it possible that while Sushil mentioned almost 30-40 people in his complaint only five students were suspended and all of them were DalitsIJ
Perhaps Rohith was right in understanding the complexities of life and politics. People from all spectrums, who never had any concern about him or the Dalits, have come to mourn his death. All the media channels are busy unravelling the mystery of his death. The politicians who could not do anything for the Dalits in last 65 years are trying to show off their concern for them. Rohith was not wrong when he wrote that the value of a man has reduced to a number. He has been reduced to just being a Dalit.
It’s being repeatedly emphasised that people belonging to higher caste discriminate against Dalits, tribals and minorities and try in every possible way to stop them from rising up the social ladder. However, if reports of the media are to be believed, not only Rohith but Sushil Kumar as well as Union Minister Datrayey against whom an FIR has been lodged belonged to backward castes. Then why is it made a Dalit issueIJ
Curiously while another incident where three medical students (all women) committed suicide accusing the college administration of charging exorbitantly high fees hit the headlines this week, hardly any media or any politician made their appearance. Is it because it’s not yet made a Dalit issueIJ
It has been a long practice of the media to misrepresent facts and construct the identity of Dalits as the exploited and oppressed “Other”.
Mantra Roy in her essay “Can We Ever Hear The Subaltern speakIJ: A Critical Inquiry Into Phoolan Devi’s Subaltern Voice” compares how Phoolan Devi is represented in print and celluloid. While Mala Sen in her narrative India’s Bandit Queen provides detailed accounts of the family feud between Devi’s father and her richer, exploitative cousin Maiyadin which influenced Devi’s resistance to injustice in her early life. According to Sen, Maiyadin contacted Gujjar, a bandit leader, to kidnap Devi when she physically abused the former for stealing her father’s neem tree, his only remaining asset that could fetch some income. But Shekhar Kapur in his film Bandit Queen shows the upper caste village headman’s son summoning Gujjar’s gang to capture Devi when she thwarted his sexual advances. Kapur portrays a story of gruesome caste oppression that could win accolades from a western audience.
Bawandar (2000), a Hindi movie by Jug Mundra and based on the true story of Bhanwari Devi, a gangrape survivor, echoes similar concerns. Bhanwari, portrayed by Nandita Das, worked as saathin, a grassroots worker employed as part of the Women’s Development Project run by the Government of Rajasthan. Bhanwari Devi is a potter by caste while her perpetrators belong to the Gujjar community, who had demanded ST status in Rajasthan. Though the film depicts the personal trauma, public humiliation and legal injustice that Bhanwari went through but the way it was received gave it a different shade. The movie was screened in almost all the universities in India and abroad, including JNU and DU, to expose higher caste atrocities on Dalits, despite the fact that both the victim and the perpetrators belonged to backward classes.
The question is why Shekhar Kapur and Jag Mundra twisted the facts and represented them as cases of upper caste tyranny over lower-caste womenIJ Why Rohith’s death is being politicised and made a Dalit issue in a similar veinIJ Is it because it adds sensation to the otherwise ‘dull’ incidentsIJ Had Rohith belonged to the upper caste would his death have been less painfulIJ Does the pain of a rape survivor vary with the caste she belongs toIJ
Are we fine if intra-caste instead of inter-caste political fracases take place on university premisesIJ We live in a society which in itself is divided in many ways — in terms of religion, region, class, caste, gender or political ideologies. Till we interact with each other, differences of opinion would remain there. But we need to be mature enough not to allow these ideological conflicts take violent shape of abuse — verbal or physical. Abuses lead to confrontations, violence and revenge.
Instead of seeking personal and political gain, it’s time that we address the issues that affects the scholars — the irregularity in the disbursement of scholarship of the students, uncertainty of job and the exploitation of students by the political parties. Creating ghettoes by letting separate hostels being constructed on the basis of caste and religion is another problem to be tackled urgently.
Anyone who avails UGC scholarship would accept that it takes a lot of time to be disbursed. Even in most cases of foreign travel grant, it takes around two year to disburse the fund. The problem of delay in scholarship has become a perennial character of UGC irrespective to the community its head belongs to. It, perhaps, has nothing to do with caste and religion of the applicant but the unjustified delay in the process of disbursement of scholarship due to complicated official paper works and lethargic attitude of the officials affects the vulnerable Dalits the most given their financial condition. The UGC officials fail to realise how the education or research of poor students gets affected. In fact for some, the scholarship is the only means of sustenance for them and their families.
Whatever be the reason --- personal, social or political --- we have lost a great scholar. But the way his death has been politicised is saddening. If we are really pained by his death, we should stop playing dirty politics and instead work collectively to bring real change andmake our society a just place as envisioned by Rohith.
(Anish Gupta and Aaleya Giri teach Economics and English respectively at Delhi University. They can be reached at pioneer.article@gmail.com. One of the writers belongs to Backward Caste. Views expressed are personal)