Rohith: Not a Name but a Movement

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

• Hemingway

When Rohith Vemula hanged himself he had probably already bled out on his suicide note. His soul was brutally crushed by the University of Hyderabad (UoH) administration and the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) government at the centre. All that was possibly left to lead him to death was the obstruction of his airway which would cease oxygen access to his brain. And that’s what Rohith did on 17th January, 2016. He created a noose out of the ropes whose strands were given to him throughout his life in form of discrimination.

He wanted to be a writer but, unfortunately, his suicide note would be the only creative piece of work he would be known for. Before remembering him on his first death anniversary, we must know why he ought to be remembered? Rohith Vemula was not just a research scholar who was thrown out of his hostel and forced to live on street. He is the signifier of discrimination faced by dalits at every step of the way, even in the 21st century.

Rohith and his friends were being investigated by the university administration for indulging in alleged casteist and anti-national activities under the banner of Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). They were accused of these by the student wing of RSS, the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Thus, began the witch hunt and everyone from the Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya to the MHRD became hunters, who directed the university to rid itself of the “casteists” and the “anti-nationals”. This launched a series of events which ultimately led to Rohith’s suicide.

In the darkness of his death lurk many questions: Why, for instance, ever since coming to power Modi government has declared an ‘open season’ on all those who oppose its ideology? We know that the hindutva ideology is inherently intolerant; but the current regime has taken this intolerance to a whole new level, where to even contemplate to differ from them is being treated as a sin. And it is a sin which does not go unpunished.

The second question is why our universities are directed to strangle the throats which raise voices of dissent, when they should be celebrating the dynamic co-existence of different and sometimes even contradictory ideas?

Are students advised to not indulge in politics, so they become compliant workforce instead of thinking humans who have the ability to question and change the existing system?

Was Rohith abetted to commit suicide because he was a symbol of the dangerous situation where a dalit acquires formal education? And because this formal education along with their life experience, stimulates them to question systems which are based on exploitation and exclusion?

Rohith’s life has ended; but life never ends with a period, it ends in a sigh…and that sigh construes of everything that haunts the ones who are left behind to continue to live.

Rohith’s last sigh haunts all those who believe in an equal and just socio-political system, as it reminds us we are far from becoming one. It haunts those who are responsible for his suicide because his death did not go in vain; it not only rejuvenated the fierce movements of the marginalised communities but it also acted as the binding agent among these movements to bring them closer together on a common platform.

Rohith’s suicide uncovered the thinly veiled anti-dalit face of BJP and its life source: the RSS. Their default defense was to try and prove that Rohith was not a dalit. This argument did not settle well with the people enraged by the incident. A, one person, Justice Roopanwal committee was formed, which was to investigate his death. But what the committee focused on is Rohith’s caste status, which was not even in its jurisdiction. The committee’s report is an attempt to discredit Rohith’s struggle and the movement that emerged as an aftermath of his institutional murder, by subtly alleging that he himself was a fraud who only claimed to be a dalit to avail the benefits provided by the constitution.

They did not stop here, on January 3rd, the VC of UoH, Apparao Podile, was presented with Millennium Plaque of honour by PM Modi himself.  

Rohith is the embodiment of things that mock BJP’s and RSS’ very existence, so they killed the mocking bird. What they don’t realise is that you can kill the mocking bird, but you cannot kill its song.