A writer of science, lover of stars and distant planets, young scholar Rohith Vemula’s life came to a tragic, violent end, when on Sunday evening he hung himself on the campus of the University of Hyderabad (UoH).
A PhD student at the department of science and technology, and a first-generation Dalit student, the 26-year-old scholar left behind an eloquent letter that reflected why he took such a step, his unbridled passion for science, and gave only a hint of the ugliness brewing on his campus for the past few months.
Union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya and Hyderabad University Vice Chancellor were named in an FIR.
Vemula and four other Dalit students had been expelled from their hostel by the university, barred from participating in or even being seen in any social or political space on campus, for allegedly attacking the president of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Susheel Kumar.
All five students, coming from poor, low-income households had been sleeping in the open on the campus since December 17 -- some had not even informed their families -- with only classrooms and other facilities directly related to their work accessible to them.
It was effectively a social boycott -- one that was a culmination of an increasingly ugly spat between the ABVP and the Ambedkar Students' Association (ASA), which the politically active Vemula was part of.
HRD minister Smriti Irani hastily dispatched a two-member fact-finding team to Hyderabad. BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao said that it was clear from the suicide note that Irani and Dattatreya “had nothing to do with this case”.
Bandaru Dattatreya, Secunderabad MP and labour minister, booked on Monday for abetment of suicide, is at the receiving end of seething student anger, as his letter to the HRD ministry called the students of the ASA “casteist, extremist and anti-national”, in August 2015.
The letter pointed fingers at the ASA for having “manhandled” Kumar, when he protested such activities, one of which, Dattatreya wrote, was the protest against Yakub Memon's hanging.
Students mourning and protesting for Vemula told dna that the students of UoH. months ago, had protested Memon’s hanging, the disruption of documentary Muzaffarnagar Baki Hai in Jawaharlal Nehru University, and expressed solidarity with the protesting students in Pondicherry University.
ASA, and these five students, were part of the protests.
In August then, ABVP had, on Facebook, said “ASA GOONS are talking about Hooliganism”.
ASA students went to Kumar’s house for a written apology, which the latter gave, accompanied by a hue and cry about having been beaten up.
Kumar claimed later that he had to go to the hospital for internal injuries and get a surgery done. This, according to the medical officer’s deposition, turned out to be appendicitis.
However, the proctorial board, recommended that these five students be suspended. The decision ignited much student protest, which led to the suspension being revoked.
This is when, students say, the BJP pressure started, with Dattatreya writing to Irani, and the MHRD sending missives to the university. Thus, by December, on the orders of a subcommittee formed by the executive council, Vemula and the others found themselves kicked outside.
On 18th, Vemula wrote a strongly worded letter to the university vice chancellor, saying that “five Dalit students are "socially boycotted" from campus spaces” and that “I request your highness to make preparations for the facility "EUTHANASIA" for students like me”.
On Monday, as the student and Dalit movements' grief poured onto the streets, the police not only detained eight of the mourners for protesting, but also forcibly seized Vemula’s body for post-mortem, when the students held a vigil all night refusing to give the boy till the university gave them a fair hearing.
