Caste Discrimination in Educational Institution: In Context with Rohith Vemula’s Institutional Murder.

Caste Discrimination in Educational Institution: In Context with Rohith Vemula’s Institutional Murder.

The tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula, has once again brought into focus prejudice and violence faced by the Scheduled Caste community, even in revered spaces like a university. The intolerance against the minorities-be it Scheduled Castes, Tribals or Muslims, plays at various levels, right from the social to political spectrum. The circumstances under which Rohith was forced to take the drastic step of hanging himself in a hostel room inside the campus has brought attention to the systematic discrimination faced by Scheduled Caste students in higher educational institutions.

For me, this suicide is not an individual act. It is the failure of higher educational institutions in democratic India to meet their most basic obligation to foster the intellectual and personal growth of India's most vulnerable young people. Instead, Rohith now joins a long list of victims of prejudice at premier institutions in the country, where pervasive discrimination drives so many Scheduled Caste students to depression and suicide.

In South India, right from George Reddy to Rohit Vemula, the right wing castiest forces have always killed the voice of justice and equality in universities. The discrimination in educational institutions is worse than untouchability. Back then at least they told you, look you are a Scheduled Caste so stay away. Now, it is white collar discrimination. No suicide can perhaps be seen only as a result of personal frustrations, least of all, Scheduled Caste suicides. These personal frustrations have visible connections with the context around them. They are political, cultural and social and therefore need special attention. Hence it becomes important for all concerned to analyze whether these suicides were intrinsically connected to the power structure of the higher educational institutions and the entry of Scheduled Castes into it which gives pain to the bloody castiests vultures sitting out there. 

Rohith’s suicide is not the first and last which we have come across in recent times. Cases of caste discrimination have also been reported from IITs, IIMs, IISc and AIIMS. In 2008, IIT Delhi was in the news for terminating 12 Scheduled Caste students citing "poor academic performance", which led to allegations of caste-based discrimination. At least 20 Scheduled Caste students from these institutions have committed suicide in the past seven years.

Rejani S. Anand, Bal Mukund Bharti, Anil Kumar Meena(AIIMS) Ajay Sree Chandra….the list is endless who succumbed to the caste discrimination and committed suicides at premier institutions. 

On August 23 2012, Vadithya Nehru, a 20-year-old second year B. Tech student of IIT Kanpur, killed himself in Hyderabad because he faced termination. He just could not face the prospect of returning to his Tanda of fifteen Lambada households, as an adivasi colony is called in Marlinga Thanda in Telangana’s Nalgonda district, and telling his people that he had been tagged with the label of failure. After all, having bagged the 17^th rank in the ST category in IIT-JEE.

In March 2012, two Scheduled Caste student at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Anil Kumar Meena and Bal Mukund Bharti committed suicide in their hostel rooms.

Mohan Dharavath from the English and Foreign Languages Univ­ersity, Hyderabad, a PhD student belonging to an Adivasi community, was rusticated in May 2014 for two years along with two other students when they protested the university’s decision to close down the 24-hour reading room in the campus library.

Last year the dean of IIT Madras derecognized the Ambedkar Periyar study circle accusing them of spreading hatred against Prime Minister Narendra Modi without giving the student body a chance to defend the charges levied against them.

If this is not enough the very own Census data released by the government says that only 2.24 % of the 200 million Scheduled Castes become graduates. This speaks about the highly discriminative mindset of the upper caste hegemony over the educational institutions.

The UoH is one of the biggest hub of caste discrimination is a well known fact. In 2002 UoH rusticated ten Scheduled Caste students for no reasons. We don’t know what are those students doing now? We did nothing that time nor when Senthil Kumar, another PhD scholar, killed himself in 2008 in the same university. He was pursuing his PhD in Physics at HCU and committed suicide in his hostel room. At first, University authorities claimed that he died of a heart attack, but when his post-mortem revealed that he died of poisoning, the issue blew up. There was a political furor, following which a fact finding committee was set up under Professor Vinod Pavarala.

Prof.Vinod Pavarala’s findings were shocking, and showed a thriving culture of caste-discrimination in the School of Science in HCU. In Senthil’s batch, four including him were not assigned supervisors. All of them were from reserved categories. Under pressure to perform and with no guidance, Senthil failed in one of the courses, due to which he stopped receiving his fellowship stipend. Hailing from a poor family of pig-breeders in rural Tamil Nadu, Senthil succumbed to the pressure and killed himself. Two others who were not given supervisors left the program.

Prof.Pavarala’s report stated that "it is a fact that most of the students affected by the inconsistencies and ambiguities in procedures were SC/ST students and more importantly, that all the physics students that this committee could meet have reported their sense that the School was acting against the interests of the SC/ST students". Out of these four students, two eventually left the course as dropouts and one got allotted a supervisor. Obviously, all the four students were from the reserved categories. 

What makes Rohith’s murder special? When Rohit composed the suicide note, did he say to himself: “if my death begins another debate, a real debate, it can only be a good thing?” It is indeed tragic that he ended his life at a time when their fight against the castiest university was gaining momentum. I myself was in touch with them from the day one when they expelled from their rooms and forced to stay outside in Velivada. I visited several times and continuously wrote against the university attitude towards these scholars on social networks. Samata Sainik Dal – South India conducted Flag March in the university. The Flag March was one of its first kind in the history of Indian Educational institutions. And since then, the common man came to know about this issue on larger scale. I called several big names to take notice of this issue and raise voice, stand with the boys and show our solidarity, but unfortunately as usual our sensitivity rose only after Rohith’s death! 

To go into the brief chain of events started with ASA students assaulting a student in the hostel, the trigger was, in fact, a derogatory Facebook post that “ASA students are goons are spreading hoolignism” by Mr.Susheel Kumar an ABVP leader in response to the protests against the hanging of Yakub Memon and banning the screening of a documentary film called “Muzaffar Nagar Abhi Baki Hai” in Delhi on the Muzaffarnagar riots.

The Union Minister of Labour & Employment Mr.Bandaru Dattatreya has merely forwarded a representation submitted to him by ABVP students to the Union HRD ministry without going into the merits of the issue. And later on raised both hands sidelining himself from the issue.

Mr.Dattatreya, in fact, drew HRD Minister’s attention to the university having become “a den of castiest, extremist and anti-national activities”, and referred to the alleged assault on the ABVP leader Susheel Kumar. 

The Proctorial Board found no evidence of assault on Susheel Kumar. The committee had, in fact, consulted all parties and submitted its report after meeting the doctors and the ABVP activist in hospital, who claimed that the punches he suffered in the course of the scuffle triggered an acute case of appendicitis. The medical report released by the medical officer also proved that he did not suffered any physical bruises neither there are any signs of wounds on his body parts.

The HRD Ministry merely forwarded the Union minister’s letter as it had forwarded the letter sent by Congress MP Hanumantha Rao on suicides on the Hyderabad University campus. It had sent six reminders after forwarding Mahunamnth Rao’s letter in November 2014 and four after Bandaru Dattatreya’s letter in August 2015.

The facts that reminders on Hanumanth Rao’s letters did not apparently elicit any reply from the university or any privilege move by the Congress MP but reminders sent on Mr.Bandaru’s letter resulted in action speak for themselves. Nothing more needs to be said !

There are many conspiracies which are been hatched against the five scholars has become a known fact by now. The first is targeting ASA activists as Anti-National, Pro Terrorists. Seconds is, suspending these scholars based on fake medical reports and without proper investigations, without giving chance to be heard, third is, ABVP approaching BJP politicians and asking them to build pressure through MHRD. Ms.Smriti Irani, blindly ordering the VC to take stringent actions against the five scholars which ultimately resulted in Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder…!

What do all these events point at..? Was it targeting ASA..? Was it targeting the scholars who conducted debate on capital punishment and staged protest against ABVP time and again..? For me it is a direct attack on Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar’s philosophy. RSS and BJP through this issue are trying to create an atmosphere wherein they want to prove that the philosophy these boys are following is Anti National. RSS agenda and conspiracy is to prove Babasaheb Ambedkar as anti national and castiest. We as ardent followers of Ambedkar’s ideology have a major role to play now. Our efforts should be to deface them, our work should be to prove who is national and who is anti national, anti humanity anti constitutional…then only we could justify ourselves as an ambedkarites.

Constitutional Provisions: 

Now allow me to let you know the constitutional provisions which speak about educational rights to all the citizens of this great nation. Article 13, 14, 15, 21 and 21A, 28, 29, 30, 38, 41, 45, 46 speaks about educational rights of the citizen. Out of these the said rights 8 are fundamental rights and other four are from Directive Principles of State Policies – Part IV. Unfortunately the state and centre government has failed miserably in implementing the egalitarian principles of constitution. The 86^th Constitutional amendment making education a fundamental right was passed by Parliament in 2002. 93^rd amendment provided amendment to article 15, which provide reservation for SC, ST and OBC in private institutions. Including self-financed but excluding minority educational institutions and it also nullified Supreme Court’s judgment in Inamdar case that State cannot impose reservation on private unaided institutions.  In 1966 Kothari commission on education viewed education as a means of national development. And in 1976 Education was put in concurrent list from state list.

To ensure inclusion and equity, India’s Constitution states that 7.5% of seats at government-funded higher education institutions are to be reserved for Scheduled Tribes’ (STs), also known as Adivasis in India, and 15% for ‘Scheduled Castes’ (SCs) often referred to as Scheduled Castes and 25% for the OBCs. The seats have neither been filled in totality and those students who joins the educational institutitions,colleges and  universities are humiliated, discriminated and forced to either abandon the education or to kill themselves. The cases of discrimination continue to make headlines in almost all the educational institutions. Every day we come across the suicides and harassment news in TV and social media.

Rohith Vemula’s death has started a revolution I feel. From the day the ruling government has come in power, there was a high sense of inequality, threat, fear and insecurity among the SC, ST and Minorities. We have seen rampant atrocities, physical attacks and regular abuses on people who dared to raise voice against the government and fascist ideologies. Innocent people are been killed for eating their choice of food, women are been striped and paraded naked on roads, children are been doused in broad day light. The common man was losing hope that nothing can be done. They were doubtful about their life and existence, they were living under immense threat that someone will run into their houses and kill their families.  But Rohith’s death ignited the fire among everyone in the country. Because of his death, such a big agitation could rose to international level by which the government is on backfoot now. His death gave birth to hope among millions of people who were under threat of their life and voice. 

Dear friends, this is the high time to carry forward this momentum and build a strong unity. This is a high time to join hands and fight against the atrocious system with much of our strength and intellect. As we see that ambedkarite organizations are scattered here and there. We don’t see unity among them, we fight within the community for petty reasons. If we don’t resolve these petty issues now, stand together and face the enemy who is standing on our doorstep, I see there is no future...! I see the conditions can be beyond our reach and one day may come when the future generations may curse us for not giving them a bright and secured future. Therefore, my friends, let us pledge that we will not let any Rohith die from hereon, let us pledge that we will show  them if we stand together nothing can defeat us... 

Demands:-

1.     Invoke IPC section 120A and 120B against VC.Apparao, Mr.Susheel Kumar, Bandaru Dattatreya, Mr.Ramchander on criminal conspiracy with the intention killing Rohit and harassment of other scholars.

2.     Financial support to Rohit’s family.

3.     Register cases under the SC/ST (Preventions of atrocities) Act, 1989 against all the people who are involved in this issue.

4.     Register cases of abatement of suicide of Rohith and criminal intimidation against other four scholars against all the people who are involved in this issue

5.     The Institutions should appoint anti-discrimination officers to deal with complaints in future.

6.     The United Nations Should recognize caste discrimination as a priority human rights and development issue and lend its united support to the endorsement of the draft UN Principles and guidelines for the Effective Elimination of Discrimination.

Lecture given at Shanti Chakra Internationals on 26.11.2015