‘Red Sun in the Blue Sky’: Rohith Vemula’s Utopian Republic

Fighting Lonely Battles

However, despite his valiant words, Rohith and his friends were fighting a lonely battle against a Brahmanical university system and its ideological network. These students were the first to be educated people in their families and they realised only too well that a life bereft of education was doomed. Ironically, away from their villages, they were forced to live in a Velivaada (in rural areas, this term is the space kept for people who have been excommunicated: forced to stay in a kind of exile, they are denied any kind of social, political and economic contacts). It is precisely to escape the rigours of such caste-based oppression in villages that these students and their families laboured hard to aspire for a dignified existence. For them, education was the sole instrument which would emancipate them by challenging entrenched prejudices.

17 January 2016 was like any other day in the campus of Hyderabad Central University. The sight of five students sheltering in the tent—Velivaada—on the sprawling campus evoked tepid responses. A few well wishers among students and teachers extended their support and espoused their cause. But by the evening of the same day all hell had broken loose. One amongst the five, Rohith Vemula, committed suicide, leaving behind a very poignantly worded note. Ironically, Rohith had been so ostracised by the university system that he was desperately looking for space to end his life. This why he apologised to his friend in his final note for using his hostel room to put an end to his mortal existence. He even wrote to the highest university authority, the Vice-Chancellor: his letter clearly revealed his deep anguish against a system which reduced him to simply a vote, a number, a statistic. All his outpourings of anger and grief were stonewalled in the past and the only response he received, once again, was silence.

Earlier Tragedies

Prior to Rohith’s tragic end, nine students killed themselves over the last 10 years students at the UoH. Significantly, they all belonged to the dalit community except for one who was a tribal. It was in 2008, when Senthil Kumar, a doctoral student in physics, committed suicide. Till date, his parents are still clueless about the circumstances surrounding their son’s death. Pulayela Raju also killed himself and his death was attributed officially to a failed love affair. Madari Venkatesh, a science student, struggled for two years academically. He was yet to begin his research as he had not been allotted a supervisor. He was upset, even his juniors had progressed with their research and he was yet to start. Finally, he was given a supervisor who asked him to change his research topic as he was not familiar with the particular area that Venkatesh was interested in. His entire academic work of two years, fellowship, job prospects counted for nothing. How does one explain his ‘suicide’ when he could publish papers in international scientific journals but the UoH did not consider him meritorious enough to provide him a supervisor? It was not surprising that he decided to kill himself on 24 November 2013.

These needless tragedies clearly reflect the rigidity of an adamant university administration, stifling the aspirations and demands from students, especially, from first-generation learners from marginalised groups. To illustrate this point: Senthil Kumar was so isolated within the campus, within his hostel, laboratory and peer group, that took two days before his body was discovered. The extreme insensitivity of the establishment can be seen from the fact that Senthil’s parents were never even given any information or a report of what caused his death: the University is yet to give back his belongings to his parents. Needless to say, the question of compensation never arises.

In Rohith’s case, his body was not even handed over to his family for last rites. He was secretly cremated. What was the need for secrecy? His family and friends were not permitted to pay their final respects; he was treated as an ‘orphan’ even in death. Many committees were formed to investigate the case and present very elaborate reports which are gathering dust somewhere. No one was found accountable; no guilt was established and life went on.

‘I used to proudly tell everyone in my village that my son was doing PhD at Hyderabad University. Today, I have come to collect his dead body’ Rohith’s mother said on the day after his death. In a Facebook photo album, Rohith had placed a picture of his mother’s sewing machine, acknowledging the labour with which she had supported the family till he started receiving the junior research fellowship.

In a way Rohith’s tragic end was different from the other suicides. Was it his eloquent suicide note, which talked of his dreams of reaching the stars? Of becoming a writer like Carl Sagan? None of the other students who ended their lives on campus had penned such philosophical thoughts. Ironically, everyone from politicians to the media made a beeline to the campus. For the first time, the national press, both print and electronic, covered Rohith’s case and a variety of discourses emerged. A huge effort was made to investigate Rohith’s caste origins so that the guilty could not escape any culpability found under the Atrocities Act. Caste with a capital ‘C’ had engaged the nation’s attention. Here was a dalit student who was not your stereotypical weak, suppressed and submissive person. He had an excellent command over the English language; he was politically active (a staunch member of the ASA); he was assertive and aspired to be a writer like his hero, Sagan. He had in his short life span, in a way, subverted the social hierarchy and epitomised Ambedkar’s dictum—‘Educate, Organise and Agitate’.

Traditionally, the domain of knowledge was barred for ‘unclean’ communities and its terrain protected scrupulously by instilling fear of banishment and even death. The first salvo was fired by the Ambedkarite constitution, which mandated affirmative action for social groups which had been historically sidelined especially in the areas of education and employment. The pace of progress was augmented after the Mandal Commission Report, which enabled more oppressed groups to reap benefits of reservations. Gradually, the university campuses began to change with more students from the deprived communities entering their portals. This was a clear challenge to entrenched hierarchies, especially in educational institutions, who protected ‘knowledge’ as their personal fiefdom. Public universities were dominated by upper caste teachers while a majority of students now began to come from marginal backgrounds. The skewed power relations drove a wedge between these two sections.

Unfriendly, Suffocating Atmosphere

The Hyderabad Central University, as an institution, was awarded an A grade by the National Accreditation and Assessment Council, denoting that it was an institution of excellence according to established academic parameters. The MHRD also had ranked Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and UoH as country’s top central universities. Both these recognitions established UoH’s academic profile. But any university, especially a public university, is not a conglomerate of infrastructural facilities alone. The annual report of any university only records the number of papers it has published, projects it has undertaken, patents it has developed, the number of references in the citation index or how the profile of the institution has grown. It is the ‘human resources’ within the university space that provide a rationale, meaning and significance to an institution’s existence. It is the pedagogy, research, inter-personal relationships and affiliations that all contribute lead to a vibrant atmosphere. For an average student, there is the thrill of stepping out of familial bonds, a journey into strange places and cultures. For a dalit student, the initial step is facilitated through reservations. But the admission is only the beginning of negotiating of unknown spaces, dealing with unfriendly supervisors or a potentially uncooperative administration, coping with peer prejudices, ultimately leading to a silent feeling of rejection and perhaps dropping out of the system or ending in, sometimes, suicides.

Battle lines and fissures revolve around the sharing of public space and availing of social opportunities in campus life. This was amply demonstrated in my ICSSR-sponsored study ¹ on, ‘Exclusion and Discrimination in Higher Learning Institutions in India—the Universities of Delhi (DU), Madras (MU), Mumbai and Hyderabad’. In campuses, which have had an animated political voice representing the dalit and minority groups, such as the UoH and Mumbai, students were confident of their caste/regional identity—perhaps a fallout of the dalit movement in their regions—articulated their grievances and exhibited a social and political vision beyond the campus. In comparison, the MU students were strangely detached from the vibrant socio-political developments in the city-space and lived isolated lives. A former student of UoH and an active member of ASA, is now a faculty of MU. To my shock, he had a portrait of Vivekananda in his room. Some of the faculty and students in MU observed that conditions were very vulnerable for dalits as the institution was very castest and patriarchal.

In DU, the dalit and marginalised students lacked an organisation till 2008 creating an ideological vacuum: in DU, it was considered shameful to reveal one’s dalit identity. The situation worsened as caste, region and ideology were deeply inter-connected, reflected in admissions, faculty recruitments and their promotions. In DU-affiliated colleges, rosters were not prepared as per the 2006 UGC guidelines. The general perception, both in DU and MU, was that the higher authorities acted like feudal lords rather than being representatives of democratic and secular ethos.

Surrounded by such a suffocating unfriendly atmosphere, one could only imagine the plight of a dalit/tribal or minority student who not only had to battle entrenched pedagogic bigotry but also intense peer prejudices. In such an atmosphere, there was bound to exist a sharp polarisation between the sciences and social sciences/humanities; rural and urban students, on the basis of language, cultural nuances and social etiquette. In the UoH, the research team observed that the social sciences disciplines were even branded by a very derogatory term—‘food courses’. A majority of dalit students opted for social sciences as they are ensured a hostel and regular food. Hailing from first-generation learner families (like the five rusticated students from the UoH and also the 10 students in 2002), these students lacked the resources to pay for the hefty fees to private institutions or survive in the cities. The majoritarian culture was reflected in courses like management, computers, sciences and mathematics.

In MU, a dalit student commented that research guides behaved differently with dalits and with upper caste students. One professor used to pat the back of the male students to verify his caste origins by feeling for the sacred thread on the back. Whenever there were opportunities to participate in different kind of competitions (debates, seminars, writing essays), faculties would seem to send upper caste students to represent the department. The argument given was that the dalit students’ language was local (cheri basha). In the UoH, a Tamil doctoral student (sciences) was so humiliated by his supervisor and department that he confided to one of the team members that he was leaving the course.

In all the four campuses, girl students were victims of both caste and gender oppression. During a field visit, some shared their problems with great reluctance and after much persuasion. A few would fix a time but avoided talking to the team. It was in the sciences discipline that these communities are most vulnerable as the laboratory was a highly contested space and they would silently suffer all forms of harassment as their supervisors could adversely affect their reputation and careers.

In such a scenario, an inordinately delayed fellowship or expulsion from the hostel was a life-threatening crisis for dalit students. They shuddered at the thought of going back to their villages as their parents had undertaken tremendous sacrifice so that their children could escape caste prejudices. Such a possibility inevitably resulted in a social death to their families. To silence students and sanitise campuses, the MHRD and UGC sought to curtail the non-NET (National Eligibility Test) fellowships, which was a nominal amount paid to research students. The dystopian world of the university, characterised by an indifferent administration and callous teachers, compelled many dalit students to question their own existence; their sense of belonging, of purpose and suicide was the last resort out of sheer desperation.

Needless to say, Rohith’s death, which could be, in fact, described as an institutional murder, a conspiracy engineered by the rightwing communal forces functioning in the university and the MHRD served as a much-needed wake-up call. The subsequent developments—the institutional violence in JNU and UoH, the targeting of students and faculty, student leaders being imprisoned, brutally abused all in the name of nationalism. Students and teachers of the UoH protesting against the Vice-Chancellor were viciously beaten up and arrested. The university campus was out of bounds for the media, sympathisers, activists and families, and students were forced to continue their protests under severe surveillance: families of the protesting students were warned to caution their wards against any anti-administration activities. In Kashmir, after the recent imbroglio at NIT—the MHRD immediately sent a team to investigate the police action against students but in UoH, no such considerations prevailed. Apparently, the Ministry considered some students more ‘equal’ than others as the violence was in the name of the ‘nation’ rather than an individual suicide against socially institutionalised prejudices. All these reflect a determined ideological drive by the ruling party which can so readily order paramilitary troops to the campus to act against hapless students and teachers.

Such thinking had filtered down to the public at large. I recalled that on a trip to Kerala, while conversing with a taxi driver in early February, he stated that Rohith was a terrorist and what happened to him was justified. Such narrative, prevalent in the public domain, was a replication of the Brahmanical mindset that has refused to acknowledge any challenge to its dominion. Since the dalit vote-bank was crucial, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, probably under duress, made a belated and forced proclamation that Rohith was the son of mother India but ironically his friends, family and well-wishers were still being hounded like anti-social elements.

Rohith’s death was not an isolated event but it set in motion the ardent desire for change—to break free from the shackles of all modes of oppression. He was truly an awakened spirit that moved a collective reaction. As observed by Ambedkar: ‘Life should be great rather than long’. Rohith’s emancipatory vision was not confined solely to dalits but he sought to create an idea of a coalition of all the oppressed groups, without the domination of any one particular ideology or social status. His ideological journey through which he sought to understand different hues of ideologies and politics convinced him that it’s only the Ambedkarite vision which was truly egalitarian and inclusive. On his 125th birth anniversary, every political party wants to ‘own’ Ambedkar. The RSS and its groups deliberately had misread and misquoted Ambedkar for their own political gains while the Congress and the Left indulged in empty Ambedkarite tokenisms to make their presence count in the political landscape. The political developments post-Rohith’s ‘institutional’ murder and the outburst of anger they followed reflected that the dalit-bahujan movement was very powerful and it needed to be further supported by progressive, radical, feminist, minority groups to forge an egalitarian, secular nation.

On a more positive note: It was heartening to witness a panel discussion in early April held at JNU, ‘Caste in Educational Institutions’ followed by a debate which questioned the presence of two pertinent symbols: Lal Salaam and Neel Salaam as prophesised by Rohith Vemula, was the only way to challenge and curtail the ‘saffron’ ideology. For a long time, dalits and other marginalised groups have been treated as cannon fodder by various political parties. But it is time for such groups not to take such marginalised groups for granted but involve them through a sharing of respect, trust and concern and jointly work out strategy to meet the challenges. Then a day might come when it will be possible to turn Rohith’s dream into a reality and see the ‘Red’ sun light up our ‘Blue’ sky.