By R Ravi Kumar for Twocircles.net
By the time you read this article, most of you would have come to know about the death of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit student who was one among five Dalit scholars expelled by the administration of the University of Hyderabad.
We shall not see this incident in isolation. Let me explain, in brief, what triggered the series of events in HCU.
The Ambedkar Students Association started their agitation against the capital punishment still in existence in IPC. As followers of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s ideology and sensitive human rights defenders they started the protest well within the Constitutional framework about six months back. The right-wing ABVP members, who were against the agitation to scrap capital punishment, were very angry with the ASA and started mudslinging on ASA.
Having gathered their strength on the campus with the appointment of Dr. P. Apparao as VC and their BJP /RSS members outside the campus, ABVP resorted for direct attack on the leadership of ASA. ASA members also protested the proposal of Apparao to make students wear vetti or lungi for all students in the recently-held convocation. Finally, the VC had to go back on his proposal leaving the choice of wearing a vetti or lungi on the students.
These two incidents angered the ABVP leaders, who subsequently wrote inflicting and character-assassinating comments on Face book about the ASA leaders.
Seeing this, the ASA members dragged the ABVP leaders to the security officer and got them deleted. Further the ABVP person apologised for the same.
ASA thought it was all over. But the ABVP members lodged a complaint both with the local police and University authorities that one of their members was physically attacked by ASA.
The University constituted a proctoral Committee to look into the matter, and the committee came out with a report denying all the charges.
But this did not detere the ABVP, who made BJP MP Bandaru Dattatreya and the BJP MLC Ramachandra Rao to write letters to the Minister for Human Resources and the VC.
The VC then extended the proctoral Committee and got a report just against what the earlier Committee said and suspended five very promising scholars of ASA.
Also, the ABVP filed a private complaint against the University seeking action taken report on ASA members.
The University, with the help of police and security forces on the campus, disturbed the ASA agitation. At this juncture Rohit gave up his life….
Why are we saying that this as a mere HCU campus issue? The recent attacks on Dalit students of EFLU, Hyderabad, attacks on Dalit students of Madras Law College students demanding the naming of their auditorium after Dr B R Ambedkar, all have similarities. In all these agitations, our youth were agitating well within the Constitutional framework. All their demands were concerned to the entire Indian community. They are, at the very basic, human rights issues and show a concern for justice and identity in a democratic country in order to uphold the dignity of the community.
But in all these issues, the modus operandi of the aggressive authorities is similar: as if they had word of exchange.
They have implicated our youth in police cases, so that their careers are doomed. They have been rusticated so that our youth will be disqualified to get any academic jobs. One very important and common to all our youth is they are the best students of their institutions.
In HCU especially, it is not the first time. Fifteen years ago, the same Apparao was the Chief Warden when 11 scholars were rusticated for three years. Out of them only some students could revive their studies. Though they have done their Ph. Ds, they continue to face the restrictions wherever they go to apply for a job.
Don’t consider this as a mere campus issue of HCU. This is a well-planned clandestine coup against upcoming future Dalit intelligentsia.
Let’s join to attack the caste Hindu Monster, before we lose any more of our future generation’s leaders and intellectuals.
The author is Secretary, National Dalit Forum. This piece is taken, with approval, from https://karthiknavayan.wordpress.com/