Rohit Vemula was a Dalit PhD scholar at Hyderabad Central University who was a vocal member of Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA) that fights against caste issues. ASA had friction with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) owing to its casteist outlooks and affiliation to RSS. In July 2015, Rohith stopped receiving his monthly stipend from the university. On the early days of August 2015, a leader of ABVP, N. Susheel Kumar was hospitalized for acute appendicitis but stated that he was lynched by 40 members of the ASA. ABVP lodged a complaint and the university ordered an inquiry by 5th August. ABVP also wrote to the Union Minister Dattatreya who then forwarded to HRD minister Smriti Irani by 17th August. They cited the dalit students to be conducting ‘casteist’ and ‘anti-national’ activities. The university received letters from Irani, upon which they took further actions by expelling Rohith and four others from the hostel and banning them from public spaces while Susheel received a mere warning. On 17 January 2016, Rohith committed suicide hanging himself with an ASA banner.
It is not difficult to see that the university favoured siding with Susheel Kumar due to his connections and showed ruthless consequences to Rohith due to his identity. In a nation riddled with caste atrocities, what difference would it make to add one more to the list? At least not at the consequence of angering those connected to the BJP and the state. This phenomenon is clearly the most explicit form of institutional casteism.
After his death, BJP derailed the entire issue into a debate to prove Rohit’s identity to the extent where justice hinged on Rohith’s eligibility to be in the Scheduled Caste. The state tried to capture the flow of the narrative by bogging it down into an identity witch-hunt. However, in reality the issue of institutional casteism was left unanswered. Rohith’s status of being Dalit did not matter when his childhood and adulthood was fraught with discrimination of being one. Anyone could sense the blatant pretense behind this conjecture. The state’s obnoxious response, wherein the meaning of justice is distorted, is itself a manifestation of institutional casteism. The police’s closure report parroted ABVP and university’s statements and portrayed him as a violent and unruly individual. The report did not mention the lack of evidence for the physical harm on Susheel Kumar nor did it contain the various recorded details of Rohit’s experience of dalitness. The report claimed that he was not a Dalit and speculated that he died fearing that his real caste identity would be revealed. Everyone else was absolved of any involvement and the report was released 10 days before the 2024 Loksabha polling in Telangana. The report threw all justice for his life for a cheap gimmick to garner more votes which secured the very people that he opposed. Ironically, his last words which warned against institutional casteism that devalues humans to mere objects seem prophetic in retrospect.
The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. – Rohith Vemula.
