The
suicide of Rohith Vemula came as a rude shock to the nation. A 27-year old
handsome Ph.D scholar committed suicide in the University of Hyderabad campus
in response to his suspension and consequent ouster from the university hostel.
It was also alleged that the authorities had stopped paying him his stipend of Rs.
25,000 per month in last July. This much is enough to evoke cries of victimization
from the hypersensitive media, but compounded on these sordid facts was the
realization that Vemula belonged to a Dalit community. The lid of the kettle of
allegations was immediately blown and everybody blamed the authorities for
causing the death of an earnest scholar who wanted to pursue astrophysics, or
that was what he mentioned in his suicide note. Charges for abetting the
suicide of a Dalit boy was charged against the Vice Chancellor of the University
and also against Mr. B. Dattatreya, who is the local MP.
But,
what exactly was the sequence of events that ended up in Vemula’s death? Is he
such an innocent victim as the others make him out to be? If we look back just
seven months to July 2015, we see a 53-year old chartered accountant named
Yakub Memon hanged in Nagpur jail after he was condemned to death eight years
ago. His crime was to take part in India’s largest terrorist bloodbath in 1993
in Mumbai. The Memon brothers and their accomplices planted lethal explosives
in Mumbai’s suburban trains and set them to explode at just after office hours
when the rush will be at the maximum. The targeted victims were the lower and
middle classes who use the railway system and in order to maximize the death
toll. The operation was staged perfectly and 277 people perished. In an
instance of the most shameful form of minority appeasement, the government was
reluctant to hang Memon in fear of antagonizing the Muslim votes. When the Modi
government assumed power in 2014, Memon’s day were numbered and he was hanged
on July 30, 2015.
Unfortunately,
fringe groups organized against the killing of Memon, even though all judicial
processes were complied with and his clemency pleas turned down by the President
of India. Rohith Vemula and his friends were the sponsors of the protests in UoH
campus, under the guise of Ambedkar Students Association. This organization is
now present in many campuses in India and is the student voice of the
anti-establishment movement you’d expect in any university. This organization
of Dalits is a militant outfit that wants to avenge the wrongs and ill
treatment heaped on Dalits over the ages. Dalits were once at the lowest rung
of societal hierarchy in India that existed prior to the establishment of the Constitution
of India, which forbade all discrimination on the basis of caste, birth or
language. Dalits were treated as sub-human almost everywhere In India hardly a
century ago, and going by press reports, the cruel discrimination has still not
run its course in some parts of the country as seen in the brutal atrocities committed
against them in some isolated pockets of the backward states.
But
Dalit organizations including the ASA, takes this as a license to vent their ire
against others in India’s civil society and against the state as well. They
want to take the other castes and the Indian state itself, up in a bid to
obtain compensation for historical wrongs. And this tirade is with totally
forgetting the scores of legislation and slew of economic measures targeted at
the uplift of Dalits. India’s constituent assembly, which framed its constitution,
granted them reservation in all legislative forums and government jobs in proportion
to their share in population. This magnanimous act was carried through the
assembly in which Dalits constituted only a tenth of the membership. Severe
penalties were introduced to prevent atrocities against them, which are in fact
misused widely. The Dalits’ continued bickering in the face of all these
benevolent measures is an indicator of the pampering they have obtained at the
hands of political parties who are conscious of vote banks. Our society is
surprised at the anti-national remarks of ASA which is all the more outrageous
because of the ingratitude, if nothing else. Most of them will not even be
crossing the threshold of the prestigious institutions if not for the
reservation kindly bestowed on them by India’s constitution.
So,
what makes a few of the otherwise gentle individuals turn arrogant when they
form groups and assume the Dalit identity? In the case of Hyderabad, ABVP
activists interrupted the meeting commemorating Yakub Memon and naturally, an
altercation arose between the organizers and protestors. As a sequel to this ruckus,
a group of students belonging to ASA barged into the room of ABVP’s leader in
the hostel. It is said that Vemula was also part of the gang. The ABVP guy was
manhandled and forced to recant his opposition. This led to widespread protests
and the Vice Chancellor suspended a few leaders of the team including Rohith
Vemula that made the assault, pending an enquiry. Naturally, the local MP and Union
Minister of State, Bandaru Dattatreya also urged the authorities to ensure
justice to the thrashed ABVP leader.
Now,
events made an ugly turn. Rohith Vemula committed suicide rather than facing
the enquiry and prove his innocence. It is evident that he was a coward who feigned
courage when being a part of the group. Coming from a very humble background,
it should have been his paramount duty to complete his studies and find a job.
After all, he was 27 and most of India’s working men would have found a job by
then – however small – and thinking about settling down. Vemula had no
compunction about letting his family down and go organizing spurious protests
and thus forfeiting his stipend. He
was totally uncommitted to anybody and his sympathies lay not with his aging
parents, but with terrorists who killed hundreds of people and tried to wreck
the Indian state. Even leaving aside all these, what kind of a leader was he,
who was afraid to face an enquiry which is an ‘occupational hazard’ of campus
politics? If you didn’t have balls to stand up to allegations and accusations,
what right do you have, to lead others? Unfortunately Vemula realized it rather
too late, and to his ruin.
What
is incomprehensible is the magnitude of outcry his death generated. Leftist
organizations are like crickets – they make noise disproportionate to their size.
Even making allowance for this factor, a section of the students wanted the Vice
Chancellor and Union Minister to be charged for abetting the suicide of Vemula.
A case was registered against them making a mockery of the process to ensure
discipline not only in higher educational institutions, but anywhere. If an
executive who initiates disciplinary action against a subordinate stands to
face prosecution if the disciplined official commits suicide, the entire fabric
of society will be unwoven in no time.
